


Sinister

by Skarla



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, F/M, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) is a Good Bro, Lucky the pizza dog - Freeform, M/M, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Sketchbooks, Stark Industries Art Department, Steve's motorbike, SuperSpy!Natasha, Tony Is a Good Bro, left handed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-04-19 04:47:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14229600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skarla/pseuds/Skarla
Summary: In the aftermath of the destruction of Project Insight Bucky gives himself a new mission.  Steve just wants to help, but isn't sure how, or if Bucky will even let him.Essentially, my brain went 'what if Bucky was left handed?!' and this is what resulted.  Now with added Clint Barton!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic in this particular fandom so I hope that I've done the characterisation justice. Story rating may go up as more chapters are loaded, so please keep an eye out for that. I haven't quite decided if I'm going to include a relationship in the story yet, so watch this space!
> 
> I own nothing, all characters belong to their respective owners, I'm just borrowing them to play in the garden of my imagination.

Chapter 1

 

The Winter Soldier tried to ignore his left hand.  It was supposed to be a weapon, but it barely functioned well enough for him to fight.  He had compensated for it on missions for as long as he could remember.  He had tried to tell his handlers multiple times that it wasn’t functioning properly, but he had been met with blank stares and been told that the equipment was working perfectly.

One, the one with the red moustache, he had taken the complaint seriously and started a series of tests.  They had improved the performance of the arm significantly and the Soldier was aware that he should be… something.  There should be something that he felt about that, he just wasn’t sure what emotion that should be.  He didn’t tell the moustached man that the arm still wasn’t right.  He had made the arm better, and he obviously been pleased about that.  Asking for more would only bring pain.

They thought that the chair wiped the memories, the sons of the men that had taken him from the frozen river.  They had lost the blueprints long ago, the original notes had gone up in smoke and the group that had held onto the Soldier like a precious family heirloom didn’t realise that he had never remembered anything from before he woke in a puddle of icy water.  They had told the Hydra Agents that the machine would make him forget, and to always transport them together.  The chair had originally been a torture device, one that had made it easy to pretend to forget everything each time they used it.  If they thought they could make him forget they would think that they had more power over him.  They thought that they were safe from long held grudges.  They thought wrong.

It had taken time, a lot of time, for the Soldier to realise that he didn’t like the things that they made him do.  A longer time to realise that he was not the person that they told him that he was.  He didn’t know who he had been, and so he began to try to use the organisation that he had no choice but to be a part of to find that out.  They had grown complacent, secure in their own power over him, so confident in their belief that they could make him forget everything that they told him too much.

They had learnt the truth before they died; he had made sure of that.

Once the carnage had cleared the red mist from his head, he had stripped the bloody gloves from his hands and taken clean clothes from the shelf in the corner of the storage room.  Everything still functioned, but the facility they were keeping him in was quieter than he could ever remember it being.  There had been no alarms; he hadn’t given them enough time to react.  He enjoyed showering for more than the three minutes they usually allowed, lathering up his long hair and rinsing it through twice.  It dripped down his neck and the shoulder straps of the tank top he pulled on after he was clean quickly grew damp.

He would need another layer if he was going to go out in public, something with a pocket to hide his metal hand in.  No point in alarming the civilians.

There was nothing left for him in the Hydra facility once he had found a zipped leather jacket his size in a locker room, and so he went to the main office to activate the self-destruct sequence for the base.  He wasn’t sure how it would work, but Hydra had always been thorough.  There would be nothing left for Shield to find.

The red countdown screen told him that he had ten minutes to leave.  It only took him four to run up the stairs, and then he was walking on a quiet side street between two warehouses on a sloping hill on the edge of the City.  He could see the obelisk in the distance, making it easy enough to identify the sprawling mass as Washington, and decided to turn his back on the capital.  It would be easy to disappear in the seething mass of humanity, but he didn’t want to disappear just yet.  He no longer had a mission, but he did have a purpose, one that he had decided upon himself; Revenge.

First though, he needed a vehicle.  The nearest Hydra facility was more than fifty miles away, although there were plenty of smaller offices and equipment caches close by, and all he had was the roll of bills in the pocket of the motorcycle jacket.  He contemplated stealing a car, but the thought felt wrong.  He didn’t need to be that person anymore.  He would find another way.

 

*

 

Steve sat on the roof of the newly named Avengers Tower and stared at his hands, tracing the whorls of his fingertips with his eyes over and over as his memory replayed Bucky – the Winter Soldier – catching his shield with a metal hand.  Of course, he hadn’t known that it was Bucky at the time, and it hadn’t been until after he had been found on the riverbank that he had had time to sit back and reflect on the events of the past few days.  Bucky was alive.  Bucky had a metal arm. Bucky had forgotten him, and then possibly remembered him, Steve wasn’t too sure about that, but he was pretty sure that Bucky had rescued him and he was taking that as a very good sign.

He frowned as a long forgotten fact floated up from his memory.  Not something that had been written down anywhere, and it had never been that much of a big deal, but he was certain now that he thought about it that Bucky had been left handed.  His breath caught in his throat in a way that it hadn’t done in years as he processed the implications of that.

The metal arm was his left arm, the arm that he had used to push his hair back with – did it get caught in the joints now?  Could he write with it?  He’d been ambidextrous with a lot of things, could shoot equally well with either hand but he had always written with his left, held a spoon with his left – was the arm dextrous enough to do that?  Sure he pick things up with it and fight with it and Steve had seen the thing moving with his own eyes, but how much movement, how much feeling did the Winter Soldier actually have?

Questions Steve knew that he had no chance of answering simmered in his brain and he climbed to his feet, taking the lift back down to the 57th floor and its communal gym.  He passed the Stark employees running on treadmills and cycling machines, pulling his ID card out of his back pocket and using it to access the private gym in the south corner of the building – Jarvis had less presence in the communal floors; Stark had told him that the knowledge that an A.I. oversaw everything tended to freak his employees out, so he didn’t remind them more often than he had to.  Doors opening without ID cards would apparently have been a dead giveaway.  However, other than a mild slap on the wrist from Pepper, no-one really seemed to mind when he forgot the card and had to ask Jarvis to open doors for him.

Natasha was working out on a set of three parallel bars wearing a black fitted tank top and a pair of blue shorts so brief that he had though they were underwear at first glance.  When she spotted him she swung to the ground, landing lightly on the blue mat.

“Captain, what can I do for you?” she asked, her breathing a little quicker than usual.  His eyes were distracted by the way the light shone on the light sheen of sweat over her breasts.  He wanted to draw her, but he crushed the urge and focused instead on his reason for seeking her out.

“I’d like to see the files on the Winter Soldier,” he told her.

Natasha frowned.  “Wilson said that you intended to go after him.  He’s not the man you knew,” she warned him.  “He’s not even the man I knew anymore.”

“Can you get me the files or not?” Steve asked, hearing the impatience in his own voice.

Natasha considered for a long moment, her eyes searching his.  “All right,” she agreed eventually.

“Thank you.”

Natasha’s mouth quirked up into a smile.  “Always so polite, Captain Rogers,” she said lightly, turning to walk back to the parallel bars.

Steve shrugged, although she couldn’t seem him.  “My mother didn’t leave me much of a choice,” he told her retreating shoulders before he left the gym.

“I’ll have those files on your desk in the morning,” she called after him.

Steve paused in surprise, one hand on the door.  “I have a desk?” he asked.

“Steve, you have a whole art studio,” she informed him, re-chalking her hands.  “It’s on floor 65, which is the floor for the main graphics department of Stark Industries.  I guess Stark thought you might be more comfortable there.”

“It’s weird how he’s nothing like Howard and yet completely his son,” Steve pushed a hand through his hair and tried to feel grateful rather than exasperated.  It was easier than he expected.  “I guess I’ll go find my office so that I know where the file will be in the morning.”

He took the stairs to floor 65, taking the steps two at a time.  It didn’t take him long to climb the eight floors that separated the gym from the art department, he completed the journey in a fraction of the time it would have taken him in the early forties, before he because a willing lab rat for Erskine and Stark’s experiment.

The art department was quiet, no ringing telephones or urgent chatter.  He would almost have thought that it was deserted if it hadn’t been for the multiple interns trotting from office to office carrying rolls of paper.  The majority of the people that he passed as he walked down the corridor in search of a door with his name on it had unnaturally coloured hair.  One was white at the roots, although the woman looked about twenty, and darkened to blue and then purple at the tips.  He found it fascinating, although he did his best not to stare, and wondered how such a colour transition had been managed, because unless the woman was a mutant, it couldn’t be natural.

His office was about half way down, a smaller space than some of those he had passed, but still large enough for two desks and several shelving units filled with brand new art equipment and enough space left over for an easel and stool.  Steve closed the door behind him and lent against the wood, looking around in astonishment.  He hadn’t expected the studio to be empty – this was Tony Stark after all – but he had expected it to be impersonal.  Instead, someone must have taken his old sketchbooks out of storage and put framed pages up on the walls – usually the more completed artwork he noticed.  He wandered around, remembering the time he drew each sketch.  The mountain scene marred by a coffee ring because Dum Dum hadn’t been paying attention, the sketch of Bucky with a rip across the bottom third because Bucky had wanted to know what he was drawing and it was just a bit too personal for Steve to be comfortable showing him.  Bucky had been smiling that day, cocky and proud with his sniper rifle in pieces on the scratched wooden table in front of him as he cleaned each part, meeting Steve’s eyes over the top of the sketchpad and completely oblivious to the smudge of gun oil above his left eyebrow.  Steve was glad that that moment had been immortalised on paper, and that the paper hadn’t been destroyed during the seventy years he had spent frozen in ice.

Moving as quietly as he could, he picked one of the new sketchpads up from a shelf and a small tin of pre-sharpened pencils.  Bucky’s face was different now, thinner.  His eyes seemed darker, his hair was much longer.  His skin had lost the perpetual tan he had always sported in Brooklyn from working on the docks.  Memories of their fights flashed through Steve’s mind as the pencil lead marked the pristine paper of the sketchbook, tracing the outline of an anguished expression, an outstretched hand.

This time he had been the one to fall.  There was something reassuringly symmetrical about that, as if a loop had been closed and now he could move forward, they could move forward.

A tap at the door broke his concentration and he looked up to find a woman with purple rimmed glasses and a paintbrush stuck haphazardly through her brown ponytail at the door.

“May I help you?” he asked.

“We – the art department that is – just wanted to welcome you to the floor, Captain Rogers.”

Steve stared at her for a moment, suspecting an ulterior motive, but she seemed sincere.  “Thank you,” he replied.

“And we were wondering if you’d mind if a few of the interns popped in from time to time to look at your work.”

“I can’t promise that there will be all that much,” Steve said slowly.  “I don’t expect to have all that much time to draw, Ma’am.”

“Lottie,” she corrected him.  “And I wasn’t referring to anything current, Captain Rogers.  I meant the old sketches and drawings in the file cabinet.”

Steve stared at the grey metal box that stood against the wall by the door.  “All my old drawings are in that?” he questioned.

Lottie shrugged.  “I don’t know about all, but everything from the flat you shared with Sargent Barnes was picked up by Shield and put into storage.  Mr Stark brought it here after you were found, and I think he liberated a few originals from the Museum and left them copies instead.”

“I’m sorry, can you give me a minute?” Steve requested holding up a hand to attempt to stem the flood of information.  “This is a lot to take in.”

“Of course, Captain Rogers.”

Belatedly, he realised as she was leaving that she had been calling him Captain for the whole conversation.  “You can call me Steve!” he called just before the door closed, and heard a muffled assent that sounded positive in return.

Alone in the studio, he approached the innocuous filing cabinet with a large amount of trepidation, and slid open the top drawer.  It was full of hanging folders, each one containing a picture in a plastic wallet.  He pulled out the first one, a charcoal sketch of his mother in her hospital bed and stared at it for a moment.

The face in the picture didn’t look a whole lot like the face in his memory, but he hadn’t been very good back then.  He stared at her for a long moment, tracing the smudged lines with a finger, and then he put the paper back in its folder and closed the drawer. That was enough emotional drama for one day, he decided.

Still, it was only mid-afternoon, and a lovely sunny day.  Steve left the studio and headed for the elevator.  “Jarvis, please take me down to the garage,” he asked as politely as he could, not sure which of the seven basement levels the buttons indicated was the one with the underground car park in it.

“Are you going for a motorbike ride, Captain Rogers?” the A.I. asked as the elevator began to move.

“That’s the plan, Jarvis.”

Black tarmac under the wheels of his Harley and the wind in his hair would help get his head back on straight he was sure.

 

Steve took the interstate to the edge of the City and then turned down a side road that skirted a small industrial area.  There were grassy fields to his right, the green dotted with a few large oak trees.  Impulsively, he stopped the bike and left it standing sentinel on the grassy verge.  He had an old sketchpad and a few pencils in one of his saddlebags, and the grass looked soft, although he knew that it probably wouldn’t be for more than two minutes.

Steve left Captain America behind for a moment as he settled in the shade at the base of a tree and began to sketch the landscape.  It was quiet so far from the city, and the warm afternoon sun seeped into his bones.  He could feel his eyes beginning to droop, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to care.

The distant roar of a motorbike roused him some time later.  His neck ached a little from resting against the tree, but he felt refreshed.  The sketchpad had slid from his hand and landed on the ground by his hip.  He picked it up and frowned in surprise.  Someone had scribbled on it.  How the hell had anyone got close enough to him to write on his sketchpad?  The handwriting was angular and messy and it was hard to make out the words, but what he eventually read had him twisting to stare at the road in shock.  His motorbike had gone.

Steve dug in his pocket for his starkphone and called Tony, Jarvis picked up after two rings.

“Captain Rogers, how may I assist you?”

“I need to talk to Tony, it’s urgent.”

“Of course Sir,” the computer replied politely.  “He is in the lab.  I shall put you on speakerphone.”

“Wait, Jarvis, is he alone?”

There was a pause, presumably while Jarvis scanned the lab.  “Agent Barton is in the air ducts and I cannot confirm his location, but the last sensor he passed was on a different floor so I think it unlikely that he is in the vents over the workshop,” he eventually replied.

Steve shook his head.  “All right, put me through please.”

Loud rock music blasted through the tiny speaker and he held the phone away from his head for a moment until Jarvis turned the volume down.

“What’d you do that for Jarvis?” Tony’s voice complained.

“Sorry Tony, its Steve.  I’ve got a bit of a situation.  Someone stole my bike.”

There was a loud clang as Tony presumably dropped whatever he was working on, or with, followed by a loud chuckle.  “Who managed to get the drop on you, Capsicle?”

Steve stared at the message on his sketchpad.  “An old friend,” he replied, reading the words again.  _You shouldn’t sleep outside, punk.  I promise I’ll bring it back when I’m done.  B._

“So, you want me to track the bike down?  It has a beacon on it, you know.”

“No,” Steve replied. “I just need a ride back into town.”

“No problem buddy, Jarvis will send a car to get you.”

“Yes, Mr Stark,” the AI confirmed.

“Tony?” Steve said, wanting to ask one more thing before the conversation ended.

“What?” the billionaire asked, already sounding distracted.

“That tracking thing?  Can you get the location up on the computer in my apartment?”

“You want a live feed? Sure, I can sort that out.  Jarvis and I’ll make sure it’s there by the time you get back.  And you know you’re welcome to borrow one of the pool cars until you get your bike back, right?”

“I didn’t expect you to be so nice about it,” Steve blurted out without thinking.  “Sorry,” he apologised quickly into the stunned silence on the other end of the line.

“I don’t know where everyone gets this idea that I’m not a nice guy,” Tony muttered petulantly.  “I mean, I welcome you into my home, I make you cool toys to play with, I think I’m a brilliant example of a human being.”

“Sorry Tony,” Steve repeated.  “I really appreciate this.”  He waited for a response but there was silence on the other end of the line for a few seconds, and then what sounded like a small explosion and the tinkle of breaking glass.

“Whoo!  That was fun.  Laters Capsicle!” the engineer said cheerfully, mood apparently forgotten, and then the line went dead.  

Steve tucked the pencils and the phone into his pocket and walked slowly back to the road, turning towards the interstate once he reached it.  No point in waiting on the spot, and whoever came to pick him up would be travelling from that direction he was sure.

He read the message on the sketchpad again and grinned.  Bucky had borrowed his bike.

_Bucky_ had borrowed his bike.

Tony was as good as his word.  By the time he had returned to Avengers Tower, the computer in his living room was displaying a map of the area with a small red dot to represent his bike.  The little window next to the dot let him know that it was the location as of four minutes ago, on the interstate heading west towards Chicago.  Steve sat at the computer and stared until the five minute mark, when the screen refreshed and let him know that Bucky was a little further down the interstate.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve is found out and Bucky tries a strawberry milkshake.

Two Weeks Later…

 

The Soldier liked the bike.  It had a lot of extra functions that he hadn’t tried out – _typical Stark_ – and best of all it had power.  He sped along the I-90, weaving around the slower traffic.  He tried not to speed too much, the last thing he needed was some Cops on his tail.

He had just finished trashing the last satellite base around New York when he had spotted the motorbike.  Something about it had caught his eye and he had moved closer only to realise that he recognised the machine.  He had been briefed on it as the preferred transport of Captain America, and he had read his own files a week ago.  Captain America was Steve Rogers, and Steve Roger’s best friend was James Barnes, and James Barnes was MIA and looked a hell of a lot like the face he saw in the mirror, albeit with shorter hair and less stubble.  He was pretty sure that they were the same person at this point.  Not 100% certain, but he had come to realise that nothing in the world was certain, not even death.

That meant that this bike belonged to Steve.  The Soldier looked around for the familiar muscled figure, and caught a glimpse of a boot sticking out from behind a tree a few meters away.  He crept closer using all the tricks the Red Room had taught him, only to find that America’s golden boy was asleep and he hadn’t needed to go super-stealth, normal stealth would have done it. 

Steve had been drawing prior to his nap; there was a sketchpad on his lap, the pencil fallen onto the grass from his lax fingers.  The Soldier was tempted to wake him up, although once Steve was awake he would have no idea what to say, but then he noticed the glint of metal in Steve’s jacket pocket and he reconsidered the motorcycle.  Taking down Hydra bases would be a lot faster if he didn’t have to use the bus, but he couldn’t just steal from someone that, judging by their last fight, considered him a friend.

Steve had called him Bucky.  Steve and Bucky had been best friends; he had read that over and over.  Perhaps Steve wouldn’t mind if he borrowed the bike for a bit, even though he wasn’t quite Bucky anymore.

The Soldier slid the keys from the sleeping man’s pocket before he over-analysed the situation.  Then he turned to leave, but that felt wrong.  Crouching back down, he lifted the sketchpad from Steve’s lap and turned it over to the blank back of the previous picture.  Holding the pencil in his right hand felt wrong, clumsy, but the left hand snapped pencils.  They were too fragile for the metal grip.

He carefully wrote a message, not really paying attention to the content in his efforts to make the words legible, and left the sketchpad leaning against the brown leather of Steve’s jacket.  He was less careful on his way back to the bike, confident that his passage would not be enough to rouse Steve as long as he didn’t trip and fall on his face.

The bike was gleaming and perfect as he pushed it upright and touched the kickstand with his heel to close it.  Already in neutral, he rolled it a few blocks down the road before he got on.  His bike starting so close would surely wake Steve up, and he wouldn’t have much of a head start.  Steve’s glasses were hanging from the clutch lever and he slipped them on as he pushed with his metal arm.  Enhanced or not, a bug in the eye could blind you.

The engine had been louder than he had expected, but the bike had responded perfectly as he guided it onto the interstate and turned west.  He had a few more Hydra bases to take out before he returned to New York, and when he did he would return the bike and then fly to Europe to take out the remains of the Red Room.  It wasn’t a brilliant life plan, but he was pretty sure that it was at least achievable.

An ominous rumble of thunder in the distance broke the Soldier from reminiscing about his meeting Steve Rogers two weeks before.  He had dealt with the Hydra bases around Chicago and then laid low for a few days in the last base to recover from the injuries he had received before taking the bike across the country to Seattle.  Hydra had a small base there tapping into the main Microsoft offices to steal information and that was his next target.

He knew that if Steve really wanted his bike back he would have done something by that point.  He had swept the machine for tracking devices, but quickly realised that the software running the bike was integrated so thoroughly that if he disabled anything the engine would cease to work, so he left it as it was.  Steve wouldn’t want his bike sabotaged in any case.

He had also found the panic button hidden in the centre of the milometer, one blow from his left hand and he would have backup.  He found that little button oddly reassuring, although he didn’t expect that he would be pressing it any time soon.

 

*

 

Steve leant against the dining table and regretted letting Natasha into his apartment.  Of course she had noticed that his bike was missing, but she hadn’t seemed all that curious about it until she had knocked at his door to request a cup of sugar – she and Clint were making pancakes of all things – and noticed the map up on his computer.

“Planning a trip, Cap?” she had asked, and the program had chosen that exact moment to refresh, the small red dot had shifted further along the I-90 towards Seattle, and the ex-assassin’s eyes had narrowed immediately.  “You’re tracking something.  What?”

And now they were standing in uncomfortable silence while he stared at his toes and she alternated between playing with the map and glaring at him as she put the pieces together.

“This is your bike.  You’re tracking your bike,” she stated after a few minutes of pulling up the full route and highlighting it in red and looking at the speed the red dot had been travelling.  “I’d assumed that Stark had removed it from the garage to tinker with it, but someone else has it.” She frowned at him and he tried to keep his expression as blank as he could, although he knew that he wouldn’t manage to keep his secret from her.   “It can’t be Sam because I saw him two days ago, and I know it’s not one of the others and you don’t know anyone else-“

Steve continued to stare at his feet as she abruptly stopped speaking to pull her phone from her pocket and poke at the screen with sharp jabs of her index finger.  Then she slipped the tiny computer back into her jeans and sat down slowly on his desk chair.

“This route corresponds with the trail of destroyed Hydra bases Phil’s team have been following,” she said slowly.  “ _Yasha_ has your bike? And you’re letting him use it?”

Steve shrugged.  “Seemed like a good cause?” he offered.  Natasha rolled her eyes at him.  “Look,” he argued.  “I was an idiot, and he could have killed me quite easily, but instead he borrowed my bike-“

“Borrowed?” Natasha interrupted, her eyebrows nearly meeting her hairline.

“He left a note,” Steve muttered.  “He said he’d bring it back.”

“He left a _note?_ ” Natasha parroted, thinking about that for a moment before demanding “Let me see.”

Steve pointed to the sketchpad next to the keyboard, open to Bucky’s shaky pencil message.  It was lying on top of the file that she had obtained for him on the Winter Soldier, the one that he hadn’t managed to bring himself to read yet.  “He signed it B, that’s good right? Although I don’t know if the B is for Bucky or Barnes.”

“I didn’t even know he could write,” Natasha admitted after she had looked at the message for a long time.  “Although it looks like he’s half forgotten how.”

“Naw, that’s because he’s writing with the wrong hand,” Steve explained, not expecting to find himself on the end of another sudden icy glare.  “What did I do now?” he asked plaintively.

Natasha pushed her hair out of her face and huffed out an exasperated sigh.  “The wrong hand?”

“Bucky is left handed,” Steve explained, sitting down on the window seat, his back to the panoramic view of New York.  “I’d forgotten that until recently, and it’s not in his file so I don’t think anyone else in this century knows.  He probably can’t write with the metal hand, even if it had the dexterity needed he’d have to use a reinforced pen.  I wonder how many other things he can’t do now that he has it, or things that feel wrong because he has to use his right hand.”  Steve clamped his jaw shut before he managed to spill any more of the thoughts that had been bouncing around his skull.

Natasha tucked her legs up to her chest, the computer chair staying perfectly still facing him although Steve knew that if he’d tried that particular move he’d be spinning in a slow circle in no time.  “Now you’re making me feel, Steve, and I don’t appreciate it,” she muttered petulantly.  He wondered if her reaction was a mask that she put on or the result of one that she let down.

“He’ll be back,” Steve said with more confidence than he really felt.  “He’ll give me my bike back, and maybe he’ll even speak to me this time.”

“And that’ll be enough?” Natasha asked.

Steve shrugged.  “I thought he was dead,” He pointed out.  “Knowing that he’s alive and moving is enough for me.  Who knows, he hasn’t disabled the tracker.  Maybe he’ll agree to take a phone or at least a GPS with him.  Then if he doesn’t move for a month I know to come and collect the body.”

“Gallows humour doesn’t suit you, Steve,” Natasha admonished him.

Steve’s mouth twisted into a wry smile as he realised that she didn’t know him all that well after all.  She left soon after, once she had raided his kitchenette for the required sugar, and he found himself staring at the blank cover of the Winter Soldier file yet again.

Moving slowly, he procrastinated by making himself a cup of coffee before he sat down at the desk to look at the file, moving the keyboard to one side so that he could spread out the pages.  He had a sneaking suspicion that everyone else in the tower had the fancy keyboards made out of light that Tony preferred, but thankfully the erratic man had decided on a slightly more old-fashioned approach to Steve’s apartment, which he appreciated when he remembered to think about it.  One day he might even thank the man, if he caught Tony in the right mood.

Coffee steaming by his elbow, he flicked open the file and began to read.  There wasn’t much to go on, he quickly realised.  Blurry surveillance photographs, a list of confirmed kills – quite short – and a list of potential kills that went on for three pages with four columns on each page.  A brilliant essay by an analyst linking the Winter Soldier to Sgt James Barnes of the Howling Commandos based mainly on sniping style that appeared to have been dismissed by his superiors.  The essay contained a strong recommendation for Shield to investigate the possibility that James Barnes had survived and was being used by the enemy.  Steve gritted his teeth and put it to one side.  If that Analyst was still around, Steve wanted to talk to him.

There was a second, slightly thicker folder that contained the information they had managed to get from Hydra.  Things like the defrosting cycle of the cryo-unit, the page headed with the Red Room’s understated logo rather than Hydra’s many headed serpent, and the ingredients of the high protein gruel they had fed Bucky when he was awake.  It read more like a makeshift instruction manual than a file on a living being, and Steve was shocked at how little Hydra actually knew about the man, the weapon, that they had decided to utilize.  The Red Room must have kept their secrets close to their chests and not shared it with their… allies? Clients? Customers?

Steve read the recipe for gruel several times, wondering how Bucky’s system would be dealing with normal food now that he was on his own.  The cryo-unit was untested technology; he had no idea how it might have affected his internal organs or his brain and he had a strong suspicion that no-one else did either.

“Jarvis?”

“Yes, Captain Rogers?” the A.I replied.

“Can you please scan the ingredients on this paper in my hand and have them delivered to my apartment?  Along with any alternatives that your database indicates might taste better?”

“Please put the paper flat on the table, Captain Rogers,” Jarvis requested calmly.  Steve followed the instructions, and a green web of light flashed into being over his dining table.  “These ingredients are all readily available,” the computer reported after a moment.  “However, they are also noted for being bland and tasteless.  I believe that I can provide a list of suitable alternatives reported to have more flavour.  Would you prefer sweet or savoury?”

“Both please,” Steve said immediately.  “And the necessary equipment to create the gruel described.”

“The inventory list for your apartment indicates that you already have the required equipment, Captain Rogers.  I will arrange for the ingredients and the alternatives to be delivered to your tomorrow morning.”

“Do you think this stuff will store well?”

There was a pause.  “Given its intended purpose, I suspect that it does, Captain Rogers.”

 

*

 

It was the milkshake that did it.  It was a dismal day in Seattle, he’d managed to take out the Hydra cells in the area and had decided to rest up for a couple of days, posing as a tourist at an out of the way motel near Lake Union.  He’d ended up taking a bus to Northgate Mall with the vague intention of buying some more supplies, and had been side-tracked by the milkshake stall at the edge of the food court, milk being one of the things that didn’t make his stomach cramp into knots.

So he’d bought himself a strawberry milkshake using money stolen from a Hydra technician, and then had to sit down in a hurry on a battered plastic chair as a wave of memory assaulted his mind before he’d swallowed the first mouthful.

Sunlight glinting off of blond hair, laughter, the smell of strawberry milkshake mingling with sweat and ozone and dust.  A bony fist punching his shoulder and a voice complaining; “ _That was mine, Buck, and you’ve swallowed half of it!  You owe me another shake, you jerk!_ ”

The Soldier swallowed his mouthful of milkshake and stared at the colourful plastic cup it had been served in.  Visually, it looked nothing like he remembered, so the memory must have been triggered by the taste.  Milkshake in hand, he headed for the map that denoted which store was where, scanning the list for a bookshop.  He needed to read up on amnesia, and figure out the best ways to get more of his good memories back.  Perhaps then they might balance out the bad memories, and he would have a clearer idea of who he had been and who he could be in the future.

A person, he had discovered, was largely a creation of their memories.  A friendship couldn’t blossom without shared moments and experiences, and until he remembered he was less than half a man and mostly just a weapon, a creation of men he had come to think of as evil – although as he enjoyed stamping them out of existence, sometimes literally, he wondered if that made him evil as well.

Steve hadn’t seemed to think so, and that knowledge was precious and important to the Soldier.

The Barnes and Noble was easy to find, and the section on medicine clearly marked.  The Soldier reached out for the thickest book on Amnesia he could find with his gloved left hand and stared at the circular golden sticker on the jacket that proclaimed that the book had won an award.  Deciding that award-winning was as good a criteria as any to use to select a book, he paid for it with more money stolen from Hydra and headed back to the bus stop, tossing the empty milkshake container in the trash as he exited the mall.

Once back at the motel, he locked himself in his room with the curtains drawn and the heater humming in the background to try to warm the chill from his bones.  He tried out several reading positions as he worked through the introductory chapter of the book, sitting at the scratched desk, sitting cross legged on the floor at the foot of the bed, sitting with his knees tucked up on the bed itself.  He finally ended up on his stomach diagonally across the mattress, his nose mere centimetres from the text.  As he turned the page the paper brushed against his nose and another memory hit:

Lying on sheets that smelt of lemons scribbling equations onto a piece of scrap paper while Steve sat cross legged against the side of the bed.  Peeking over Steve’s shoulder to check on his answers to the same problem as quietly as he could, knowing that Steve would raise a fuss if he caught him ‘cheating’.

The Soldier shuddered a little and shoved the book away, burying his face into the worn duvet that covered the bed.  An indulgence in instinct that the Soldier didn’t usually allow himself, but perhaps it was time for a new way of living, and a new name to go with it.  Perhaps it was time to be ‘James’, at least for a little while.

James huffed one last warm breath into the coverlet before he raised his head, face flushed from the trapped warmth.  He reached out and dragged the book back into his field of vision.  Somewhere in these pages was the key to getting his memories back, and he was determined to find it and turn it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Face to face talking finally occurs. Possible trigger warning for people with eating disorders, I think it's pretty minor stuff - notes at the end if you're worried.

Chapter 3

 

Steve was soaked to the skin.  He had gone out for his normal run around Central Park for the first time since the Hydra attack without checking the weather forecast first.  It had looked a little grey between the skyscrapers, but the lighter sky close to the horizon had fooled him into thinking that the clouds were clearing.  He now realised that they had been gathering, as his hair was plastered to his forehead and his sweatpants clung to his skin.  He slowed his pace, not wanting to run into another pedestrian as the visibility worsened, and took a curving path that lead to the entrance closest to Stark – Avengers – tower.  By the time he reached the gates his shoes were soaked through and he could feel the water trickling down his back to soak his underwear.  Grimacing at the slight chafe, he slowed further to try to reduce the discomfort, walking briskly through the rain storm and avoiding the other pedestrians doing the same.  The sidewalk had quickly become a sea of umbrellas and he was amused to see several people using newspapers as makeshift cover, the sight taking him back to the forties.

“A familiar sight, ain’t it?” said a familiar voice to his left.  Steve jumped in surprise to find that Bucky had appeared out of no-where, clad in a leather motorbike jacket and blue jeans darkened by water.  His long hair was wet, but the baseball cap he wore pulled low over his eyes had kept his face mostly dry.

“Yeah,” he managed to reply.

“I parked your bike in an alley three blocks from the tower, but there wasn’t anywhere safe to put the keys so I was walking to drop them at the front desk when I spotted you,” Bucky explained in a rush.

“I’m glad to see you,” Steve replied simply.  “Do you need to go or have you got time for a drink?”

Bucky chewed at his full lower lip.  “I guess it’s only right to have hot chocolate in this weather,” he said after a moment.

Steve nodded and they walked in silence for a few moments, Bucky fishing the motorbike keys from his pocket and Steve accepting them with a smile.  “I expected you yesterday,” he revealed.

Bucky shrugged, and Steve marvelled for a second at the synchronicity despite his miss-matched shoulders.  “Needed to run some errands before I dropped her off,” he replied.

“So, there’s a real good coffee shop that does nice hot chocolate on the first floor of the tower, but if you’d rather go somewhere else I don’t mind.”

“I reckon we’re more likely to get away with dripping all over the floor in the Tower,” Bucky said after a long moment.  “Think the security will let me in?”

“Tony knows that I let you take my bike,” Steve said after a long moment.  “He set up a map for me so I could see where you were and then never mentioned it again.  I think Jarvis’ll let you in.  Tony’s more likely to invite you into his lab so that he can check out your arm than kick you out.”

Bucky rotated the metal limb and clenched the fingers into a fist, the servos whirring softly.  “I could probably use a tune up before I head to Europe,” he said stiffly.  “If that sort of thing can be arranged at short notice.”

Steve spluttered in astonishment, peering at Bucky through the raindrops that kept on dripping from his eyelashes.

“Shut up,” Bucky scowled.

“Sorry,” Steve apologised automatically.  “I just…. I didn’t expect this.”  He peered at his companion through the driving rain, trying his best to read body language rendered unfamiliar through years of separation.  He thought that Bucky was uncomfortable, but trying to hide it for his sake.  He was trying, and that fact alone gave Steve hope.

“I know you have questions.  I’ll answer them all once we’re sitting down,” Bucky promised as they reached one of the side entrances to the tower and waited under the small overhang for Jarvis to open the door.  Steve never took his security pass out of the building when he was running, just in case he lost the flimsy piece of plastic.

They took the stairs to the first floor, Steve’s wet shoes squeaking a little on the polished floor.  Bucky walked silently, his wet footprints the only sign of his passage.   Steve realised after the first flight that his unexpected companion wasn’t actually silent, it was just that he was walking and breathing in time with Steve; so any noises that he made were covered by the louder ones Steve was making.

The coffee shop was crowded, the smell of damp fabric overwhelming the usual smell of roasting coffee beans.  Steve joined the queue and shuffled forward slowly, trusting Bucky to go and find a table.  It was the way that things had always been, Steve queueing quietly, his angelic features more likely to get them a free treat from the cashier while Bucky found a table and intimidated all comers. 

He peered up at the choices as he moved forward, the Red Room file running through his mind.  Would milk be too much for Bucky’s system?  He wasn’t sure.  A few minutes later with two soya hot chocolates in hand, Steve scanned the room, looking for the table with the best view of the exits as that would be where he would find his childhood friend.  As predicted, there was a familiar wet baseball cap against the back wall, sitting a table for three.

“Thanks,” Bucky said, wrapping both hands around the warm ceramic.

“You need to warm the metal one?” Steve asked in surprise.

Bucky smiled at his astonishment, a small quirk of his lips but Steve decided it was the best expression he’d seen so far.  “It’d look strange if I only warmed the right one and I’m trying to blend in.  The metal does get chilled, but it’s my shoulder that aches.”

“Fair enough.  Bet it’s weird, losing your left hand.”  Steve sipped at his drink and got a mouthful of warm foam and a drizzle of scalding chocolate that burnt his tongue.  Thanks to the serum, the pain faded in a few second but he still mentally scolded himself for impatience.

“Why the left?” Bucky asked, his brow furrowed. 

“What?”

“You specified left just now.  Would it not have been weird for me to lose my right?”

“Oh, of course not, but it must be stranger because it’s your left, dominant hand and everything.” Steve clarified.  He was surprised to see the confused expression on Bucky’s face, something that he remembered well from History class.  “Don’t you remember?  You’re left handed.”

“I am?” Bucky asked incredulously.  “Is that why the arm feels wrong?”

Steve found himself chuckling although part of his brain was screaming that laughing at a Soviet assassin was a really bad idea and he should stop, right away.  “I expect the arm would feel wrong anyway,” he grinned.  “But yes, there are a lot of things that you used to do with it that you probably have trouble with now. Like writing, or using cutlery, or styling your hair.”

“I don’t style my hair,” Bucky objected.  “Maybe I used to, but these days my hair just… exists.”  He took a tentative sip of his drink, seeming to contemplate it a moment before  taking a second, larger mouthful.

“Fair enough.  Do you want to talk about what you’re going to do next?” Steve asked, and then had to stop himself from holding his breath, afraid that the question would cause Bucky to vanish on him.

“I’m going to Europe to take down the rest of Hydra, and the Red Room,” Bucky said with some certainty.

“I hate to bust your bubble, but Shield has already done that,” Steve told him.  “They realised pretty early on that the USA bases were being taken out, I think they’ve given the credit to this school of Mutants I’ve heard rumours about, so Shield have focused on the European Hydra presence and there’s not a whole lot of it left.”

“They probably missed a few,” Bucky said, waving his metal hand dismissively.

“Maybe not, the search is being headed by Agents with impressive résumés,” Steve countered.

“Fine,” Bucky sighed, peering into his mug.  “In that case, I have no idea.  That was my life plan – revenge on Hydra.”

“I don’t want to pressure you…” Steve started, but tailed off when Bucky pinned him with a knowing look.

“You want me to stay here, right?  I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?” Steve asked.  “This is a secure building, and Stark would love to have your arm, even if he’s less enthusiastic about you.”

“I could be dangerous,” Bucky objected.  “I am an assassin with unknown mental triggers.”

“This building has an AI living in it that never sleeps and who can monitor you 24/7,” Steve pointed out.  “If the world is going to be safe from you anywhere, it’s here.”

“You haven’t even asked Stark,” Bucky protested, but Steve could tell that he was cracking.

Steve smiled.  “So finish your drink and let’s go ask him.”

“No need,” Tony said, dropping into the spare seat at their table and tapping his ear meaningfully.  “Jarvis has been giving me a live feed of your conversation since you entered the building.  Welcome.”  He held out a hand, and after a moment of hesitation Bucky shook it.  “Very mean of Capsicle here, implying that I’d only love you for your arm.  You have a screwed up head too, that should not be overlooked, and I have a little experience at being captured and forced to work for the enemy myself, so there’s a room here for you if you want, mi casa est su casa and all of that B.S.  Seriously though, can I take a look at the arm or will you freak out?  Because if you freak out I cannot guarantee that one of the kids won’t spray you with a fire extinguisher.”

Steve and Bucky blinked at Tony for a few moments, trying to parse his meaning from the flood of clichés and Tony-isms.  “I won’t freak out, but I don’t think it’s safe for me to be around children anyway,” Bucky replied.

“He means his assistant robots,” Steve hastily clarified.  “I think.”

“Got it in one, Cap, you’re getting better,” Tony beamed.  “Not that you were doing badly before, for an old timer at least.”

 

*

 

“This,” Tony declared as he peered at a holographic scan of the metal arm, “is a genius piece of technology put together by heartless idiots.  Someone had a brilliant idea – and this is me calling it brilliant – and then the concept was put together by sadistic flying monkeys.”  He twisted his fingers inside the hologram and raised both eyebrows.  “What were those morons thinking?”

Steve tensed as he suddenly abandoned the hologram in favour of the real thing, examining the seam where metal met flesh with a magnifying lens, half expecting Bucky to react badly to the darting movements and close scrutiny.  “So, what do you think?” Steve asked, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot.

“I can totally do better,” Tony announced.  “Prosthetics are not exactly my area, but this isn’t your typical prosthetic.  Can you hang for a couple of days?” he asked Bucky.  “I figure that you have big blow-up-hydra plans, so I’ll try to make this swift.”

“I can stick around for a bit,” Bucky confirmed and Steve bit down on the inside of his cheek to keep his expression neutral.

“Excellent!”

Steve and Bucky watched as Tony spun around the workshop, his two robot assistants handing him tools he apparently didn’t want as he worked.

“No, not that you imbecile, I asked you for that yesterday, have you only just figured out what I meant?” he grumbled.  “OAPs, you can probably go do something elsewhere now.  You’re making the kids nervous.”

“Ok,” Steve agreed.  “Who else is in the tower?  I don’t want… um…”

“The only Avengers present are yourself and Mr Stark,” Jarvis informed them promptly. “Miss Potts is on a business trip, Doctor Banner is due to check in tomorrow.  Mr Barton is in his own residence, and I believe that Miss Romanov is currently working overseas.”

“Thank you, Jarvis.  See you later, Tony,” Steve waved Bucky towards the elevator and followed him into the small box.

As the doors closed he realised just how close they were standing.  Bucky smelt of chocolate and leather and motel room soap, and he had dark circles under his eyes.

“You look like you need a nap,” Steve blurted out without thinking.  “Sorry.”

Bucky chuckled quietly.  “I know I look like crap,” he admitted.  “It hasn’t been easy.”

The doors opened silently onto Steve’s floor.  “Make yourself at home,” Steve offered, heading to the fridge.  “I’ve got something for you.”

“What?” Bucky questioned, following him into the kitchen and perching on a stool.

“Natasha – remember her?  Redhead, she was fighting with me when we met.”

“I remember Natalia,” Bucky confirmed.

“Well, she got me your file, and it had this recipe in it, and it was all pretty crap and bland, so Jarvis helped me improve it a little,” Steve explained, taking a large jug from the fridge and filling a glass before handing it to Bucky, who took a tentative sip.  Blue eyes widened in shock and the Soldier downed the entire glass in three long swallows before holding it out for a refill.  Steve smiled in relief as he passed over the entire jug.

“You have no idea,” Bucky informed him as he refilled the glass, “how messed up my stomach seems to be, and how hard it has been to find stuff that I can eat that fills me up.”

“You must have been starving,” Steve realised, pulling out the ingredients to make another batch.

“I drank a lot of milkshakes,” Bucky admitted, finishing off the last glass from the jug.  “This stuff tastes nicer than the bland crap Hydra were feeding me.”

“You can thank Jarvis for that,” Steve told him as he put the blender together. “It’s mainly porridge oats rather than milkshake. But we could experiment.  Natasha made me try a fruit smoothie once, and that seemed pretty easy on the stomach.”

“I probably have frostbite on my intestines or something,” Bucky grumbled.  “Stupid Nazis.”

Steve put a bowl of oats and milk into the microwave to cook and leant back against the counter.  “I don’t suppose you’ll consent to having a doctor take a look at you?” he asked.

Bucky scowled at him.  “Nope!  I’m all shot up with chemicals and some version of the serum that you got.   No doctor has a hope in hell of figuring out how to help me.  I’ll either heal on my own or I won’t.  You’ll have to teach me how to make this oat slurry so that I don’t have to live on McDonald’s milkshakes for the rest of my life.”

“Heaven forbid!” Steve joked as the microwave beeped.  He took bowl out to stir the clumps out of the oats before sticking it back in for another minute.  “Are you still hungry?  Or do you want to take a nap or something?”

“A nap sounds good,” Bucky admitted.  “But I’m pretty grimy, maybe I could shower first?”

“Sure!”  Steve abandoned the microwave to fetch clean towels and a change of clothes.  “Lucky I bulked up, now my clothes will actually fit you.  Don’t you have any gear with you at all?”

“Not really.  I destroyed the previous outfit each time I found a new one.”

“I can put your stuff in the wash after you’ve showered,” Steve offered.  “Unless you have a particular hatred for that outfit, in which case I think there’s a fire pit on the roof.”

He was ridiculously pleased when Bucky laughed and his lame attempt to joke and passed the time while the Soldier showered checking his emails – as expected Tony has sent someone to collect the bike and it was now safe in the Garage.  The engineer warned him that it would need a full service and check over before Steve would be allowed to take it anywhere.

 

*

 

James let out a long breath as the bathroom door closed behind him.  After a second of contemplation, he reached down and flicked the lock.  It was the first time he had tried being Bucky for longer than it took to order a milkshake, and he hadn’t expected how draining it would be to hold the persona.

At the same time, it had been easier than he expected to play Bucky for Steve.  All the cues were there, just waiting to be picked up on.  Shedding his sodden outfit, he stepped towards the shower, which looked overly complicated.  It turned on as he approached and he started back in surprise, nearly tripping over his own boots which would have been an embarrassing injury to explain to anyone.  Luckily he regained his balance before knocking himself out on the sink.

“I apologise, Sargent Barnes,” Jarvis’ voice came from the ceiling.

“You’re in the bathroom too?” James asked, wondering if he should cover himself.

“I am in the entire building,” Jarvis explained.  “Captain Rogers has trouble with the shower settings, so he has asked me to manage them for him, I assumed that the same would be acceptable to any resident of this bathroom but it seems that I was mistaken.  I apologise.”

“That’s all right,” James replied, stepping towards the shower that continued to rain hot water onto the bare tiles.  “There’s an intimidating amount of knobs in there, it’s probably for the best that you manage them.  Just don’t burn my scalp off ok?”

“I’ll do my very best,” the AI responded dryly, and James found himself grinning as he tentatively moved under the spray.

He stared down at himself as he wetted his hair, tracing a hand over his hollowed stomach and scarred ribs.  He had known that he wasn’t eating enough, but somehow over the last few weeks it had ceased to matter too much.  The first cheeseburger he had tried had come straight back up ten minutes later, and since then he had existed on a diet of milkshakes and vegan protein bars.  Whatever had been in that glass that Steve had given him, it had stuck in his stomach and filled him up in a way that nothing else he had tentatively tried since the cheeseburger incident had managed.

It hadn’t been in the plan, but according to Steve his plan was redundant in any case, if Shield really had taken out the threat.  He soaped up his hair and wondered if he could persuade the AI to show him a map of the bases that had been taken out.  He’d be able to let them know if they’d missed any.

Finally clean and warmed through, he wrapped himself in an oversize towel and unlocked the door.  Steve was standing right outside and they both started in surprise.

“Sorry Buck,” Steve was the first to recover.  He pushed a small pile of grey and blue fabric at James.  “Clean clothes.”

“Thank you,” James responded, heart hammering against his ribcage.   His stomach let out a gurgling growl and Steve’s eyes dropped, eyebrows rising in shock.

“You’re skin and bone!” he exclaimed in what James suspected was horror.  “I’ll make you another milkshake.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: Cryofreeze has messed up Bucky's digestive system and he hasn't been eating properly since escaping from Hydra. Steve has the solution - well the recipe! - from the red room file. 
> 
> Thank you for the kudos, it means a lot to me that people are enjoying this work in progress!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introducing... Clint! The Fraction/Aja Hawkeye is the only Marvel comic series that I've actually read, and I love their Hawkeye, so the character you read about here is heavily influenced by that.

Chapter 4

 

Luckily for all concerned, only two days had passed before Stark had decided that Jarvis was sufficient supervision for James within the tower.  This meant that he had options when it came to hiding from Steve.  He was now pretty sure that he had loved the man like a brother, but if the blond forced one more strawberry protein flavoured milkshake at him James was going to shoot him.  Somewhere non-lethal but exceptionally painful.  Or perhaps awkward and embarrassing.

There was something familiar about the feeling of fond exasperation Steve evoked when James spotted him approaching with yet another chilled glass of sludge and a determined expression, but it hadn’t triggered any specific memories yet.

James’ initial refuge had been Stark’s workshop, where the engineer was working hard at something to do with his arm.  Tony had initially been pleased to see him – having the original on hand was apparently helpful, but James got the impression that the man didn’t have much experience with other people in his space so he tried not to wear out his welcome too soon.  It was a pity; Dum-E had just started to warm up to him.

The range was one place that he was almost guaranteed never to see Steve, and he was careful not to spend so long there that the blond came looking for him, smoothie in hand.  It was nice to have a place in the tower where he was almost sure not to be bothered.  Stark didn’t seem to use it so the only other occupants were members of the Stark Industries Security department, and they just gave him friendly nods and kept out of his way.

After spending a particularly frustrating Sunday morning arguing with Steve over therapy, of all things, he arrived at the range looking to blow off some steam and froze just inside the doorway at an unfamiliar noise.

A stranger was standing at the far wall, wearing bright purple sweatpants that looked like they were dangerously close to falling off his hips.  He didn’t have ear defenders on, and after a second James realised that was because he was holding an impressively complicated compound bow, not a fancy futuristic gun.  The man pulled an arrow from the tube in front of him and sent it zipping down the range before turning to look at James.

“Hi.  Stark said you were here.  I’m Clint Barton.”

James nodded, remembering his briefing, and walked forward.  “Hawkeye.  Nice to meet you.”

Barton scrubbed a hand through his sandy blond hair and James noticed that he had a bandage wrapped snugly around his bicep and a plaster above his left eyebrow.  “Your army records are legendary,” he said next.  “Seriously man, they teach a class on you at Shield Academy.  Please tell me you’ll have a shooting contest with me?”

James opened his mouth to decline, but instead what came out was “What are the stakes?”

Barton grinned.  “What do you want?” he asked, quirking one eyebrow and then immediately wincing and dabbing his fingers lightly at the plaster on his face.  “Aww, cut, no.”

“I’ve never shot a bow,” James told him, eyeing the sleek metal.

Barton stared at the weapon and James braced himself for an awkward rejection.  "Deal," the blond said instead.

“What do you want if you win?”

“Dirt on Steve,” was the immediate answer.  “I need something new to mock him for, the patriotic, geriatric and frozen jokes are wearing thin.”

James thought for a moment.  What few memories he had were still a jigsaw of disparate pieces, but there were a few in there of a younger Steve that he thought wouldn’t have made it into the history books.”

“Deal,” he agreed.  “Rifles?”

“A good a place to start as any.  What do you want to be be called?"

James paused for a moment, unsure how to answer.  Steve hadn't asked and Stark had just spewed out a sequence of ever-changing nicknames.  "Barnes is fine," he decided eventually, realising that the archer has been standing patiently waiting for him to figure it out.

"Barton and Barnes it is.  We sound like a law firm."

 *

Two hours later Barton laughingly conceded and James returned to Steve’s rooms feeling that he had accomplished something for the first time since blowing up that last Hydra base.  Steve was in the kitchenette, putting whole chicken into roast with a paintbrush stuck behind his ear.

“How was the range?” he asked.

James snorted.  “Have you had Jarvis checking up on me again?”  He maneuvered around Steve to pour himself a glass of water from the jug in the icebox.

“I’m glad that you and Clint were getting along.” Steve replied, which meant yes.

“I won,” James revealed, feeling more than a little smug.  Steve turned to look at him with an odd expression.  After a moment James recognised a mixture of surprise and pride.

“What did you win?” Steve asked after a moment, turning his attention to the small mountain of potatoes next to the sink.

“He’s going to teach me how to shoot a bow.  Need a hand with the potatoes?”

It wasn’t the first time he’d offered to help with dinner, but just like all the other times he’d tried Steve shook his head stubbornly.  “You were always a terrible cook Buck, if I let you help something is sure to go wrong,” he predicted.  “Go shower, you smell like the range.”

“Aye aye Captain,” James replied, feeling more like Bucky than usual.  Steve dropped the potato he was peeling in shock and he retreated out the room before Steve tried to prolong their brief interaction, suddenly uncomfortable in his own skin.  Had he crossed a line?

Despite usually having all the subtlety of a sledge hammer, Steve acted normally at dinner and James was profoundly grateful for that.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” he asked once he’d taken the edge off of his appetite and had started eating at a normal pace.  James helped himself to more mashed potato before he answered.

“Tony wanted me in the lab in the morning, and then I’m meeting Clint in the range after lunch.  You?”

“Natasha wanted me to go into the City with her,” Steve revealed, rearranging the chicken bones with his fork.  “I’m a little scared to be honest.  I think she wants to go identity shopping.”

James grinned.  “You like her,” he announced.  “I remember that look.”

Steve was obviously torn between being overjoyed that he had remembered something and shifting uncomfortably in his seat like it was coated in itching powder.  Sometimes James found it so easy to read him that it made him uncomfortable.  A level of knowledge he shouldn't possess.  “She reminds me a little of Peggy,” he admitted after a moment.

James blinked, remembering the fiery brunette with her bright lipstick.  She had said something to him once, something important, but the memory dissolved like candyfloss as he tried to bring it into focus.  He realised belatedly that Steve was still waiting for his reaction.  "Yeah, that'd do it."

"You're not mad?" Steve asked, abandoning the chicken bones to flatten his mashed potato into a pancake.

"Why would I be mad? Eat your damn dinner."

They finished the rest if the meal in silence and James was loading the dishwasher when Steve answered his question.

"I sometimes feel like I'm betraying the memories by moving on."

"Living your life isn't betraying anyone," James declaired with more certainty than he felt. "None of them would want you to be stuck in limbo.  Go out with Natalia, help her dress for a new identity, maybe have a go at it yourself.  Be Steve for a change rather than Captain Rogers."

Steve didn't answer and James turned from the dishwasher to find him staring at him.  "I think that's the most words you've said in a row to me since 1945," he said, surprise slowly overtaking joy as he smiled.

James groaned.  "Cut the theatrics and get the dish soap down for me, it's right next to your stupid head."

*

Stark seemed distracted when James arrived the following morning, the pounding base and screaming vocals of his preferred music echoing into the corridor despite the soundproofing on the lab.  James paused in the doorway, looking up at the nearest security camera.

“Jarvis?  Do you, um… is it still ok or do you think I should try again later?”

“Sir has not forgotten your appointment,” the AI assured him.  “The majority of what you see before you is preparation.  I believe that Sir may be nervous.  This will be the first time he has operated on anyone other than himself.”

“He operated on himself?” James took a step back from the door, peering through the pane of reinforced glass that edged the walkway at the mad engineer.  “Why?”

Stark was currently in the middle of a disagreement with Dum-E over the placement of a rolling tool chest and didn’t look especially like the sort of person who would carry out crazy medical experiments on himself.  A red face floated up from his memories, sunken cheeks and burning eyes.  James shivered and pushed the memory away.

“Sir did not have much choice,” Jarvis explained.  “I will send the available files to your tablet.”

“Thank you, I appreciate that.”

Stark chose that moment to look up from his fight with his robot and spotted James hovering in the hallway.  He frowned for a second, then waved at him to enter.  Jarvis obediently opened the sliding door, and James stepped inside the workshop.

“How long were you out there, terminator?” Stark asked, leading him over to a padded chair.  There was a large gash across the back of it, yellow foam threatening to burst out onto the floor.

“Not long, just chatting with Jarvis.”

That earnt him a sharp look but Stark didn’t comment.  “Cap’s been fussing, but you look like you’ve put on weight to me,” he said abruptly.  “I’ve done my best but I still think this might hurt.  I want to replace the power cell in the shoulder with the same one that’s in here,” he paused to tap at his chest.  “I’m concerned about the long term effects of the one you have in there, even with the serum healing you up.  I’d also like to replace some of the motors and servos with better ones, but that might need to wait for another time, the power cell is my priority.  Is that ok?”

James nodded but Stark scowled.  “Informed consent,” he insisted.  “I need you to talk to me Barnes.”

“I get it,” James attempted to reassure him.  “The Power cell in my arm might leak and poison me, so you’re going to replace it with a safer one.”

“It might hurt,” Stark repeated.  “I couldn’t find an anaesthetic that could work on you listed in the file, and you’ve been enough of a human guinea pig but I should have tried harder, so stupid sometimes, but I really don’t want to wait-”

James reached out with his flesh hand and took the screwdriver Stark had been gesturing with.  “It’s ok, Stark.  Tony.  I trust you.  I trust that you wouldn’t be doing this if you didn’t believe that it was necessary. You’re not like them.”

All the tension seemed to flow out of Stark’s frame, so he figured that it had been the right thing to say.

Stark hadn’t lied, taking the power cell out of his arm was uncomfortable, but it was nowhere near the screaming agony of the Chair so James grit his teeth and dealt with it.  Stark had set up a mirror so James was able to see what the man was doing inside his arm as he carefully moved wires from the dull leaden power cell in his bicep to the shining cell he had invented to replace it.  He could see why the engineer had been worried, the power cell did look like it was corroding a little at the edges and there was a dull green residue around the housing that Stark carefully cleaned off.

About halfway through, Dum-E rolled towards him clutching a blender jar half full of green smoothie and chirping inquisitively.  Stark glanced over his shoulder and groaned.  “J, buddy, please tell me if the contents of that blender are safe for human consumption?”

“I can confirm that they are,” Jarvis said smoothly.

Stark nodded, seemingly satisfied, and made eye contact with James for the first  time in forty-five minutes.  “You want some?  You should probably keep your blood sugar levels up if we want to get through this intact.”

“Sure,” James agreed, reaching out carefully with his flesh hand.  Dum-E rolled forward slowly, careful not to knock the leg of the chair he was sitting in, and extended his claw to pass James the jug.  “Thanks Dum-E.”

“He’ll stand there till you drink it,” Stark told him, reconnecting or disconnecting something that pinched.  James breathed out through his nose until the sensation passed and then took a tentative sip of the smoothie.

“If I vomit it’s not your fault,” he assured the robot, who beeped sadly at him.  “Not a whole lot agrees with me these days.”

To his surprise, whatever the bot had put in the blender went down smoothly, although it didn’t fill him up the way Steve’s oatmeal protein shakes did.  Stark had known what he was talking about, the extra sugar made riding out the pain much easier and he found himself able to concentrate on the music, rather than on staying absolutely still in the chair.

“Nearly done,” Stark muttered some time later.  “Just one more… yes!  Now I just need to put you back together and you’re all good with no more risk of blood and or radiation poisoning.”

“That’s your good deed for the day then,” James smiled at him.  Stark snorted, eyes on the screw he was tightening.

“Need to do a lot more than one a day to make up for the crap I’ve pulled,” he said quietly.

James was certain that he was not the best person to handle this sort of conversation, but he knew that he had to say something before the pause became and awkward silence and things were strained between himself and Stark indefinitely.  “The important thing is that you’re trying.  That’s what makes you different from them.”

He wasn’t sure if it had been the right thing to say, and Stark didn’t respond to it, but the silence seemed comfortable rather than forced.  It wasn’t long before Stark had put the last panel back into place and telling him he was free to go.

He detoured past the kitchenette to drop off the empty blender jug, Dum-E wheeling behind him making excited chirps.

“I liked it,” he assured the robot.  “Thank you for making it for me.”

“You don’t have to be polite to him, he’s an idiot!” Stark called from the other side of the workshop, his words punctuated by a loud crash.  James peered over but he could barely see the man, hidden within the depths of one of his fabrication units.

“Thanks for the tune up, Stark!” he called on his way to the door.

“Any time, Robocop!”

*

Steve was pretty sure that he had been in fire fights that were more relaxing than shopping in New York. He was eyeing a group of teenagers warily, concerned that they might see through his admittedly flimsy disguise of beanie hat, sunglasses and stubble, when Natasha surprised him by tucking her long slender fingers into the crook of his arm.

“Thank you for coming out with me,” she said serenely.  “I dislike shopping with no one to watch my six.”

“I will guard your changing room modesty with my life,” he joked, earning himself a raised eyebrow.

“You’re different,” the former spy observed quietly.  “Happier.  It’s nice to see.”

“I suppose having Bucky around has lifted a lot of worry, although now I’m worrying about different things.  But worrying about him is familiar, you know?”

Natasha shrugged, pausing to peer into a boutique window before moving on.  “I suppose.”

“He had a really good day yesterday,” Steve told her as they paused to wait for a harried woman pushing a buggy and pulling a toddler to make her way past.  “Won some sort of shooting competition against Barton?  He was almost smiling when he told me about it.”  Bucky had seemed different that evening, almost as if he’d been carrying an invisible weight around with him and it had been made a little lighter.  He had been sarcastic, and Steve didn’t really want to admit how much the glimpse of his old mocking attitude had affected him.  Steve had been glad that Bucky had headed to the shower rather than lingering in the kitchen, he had needed the solitude to compose himself.

“That surprises me,” Natasha admitted, steering him towards a shoe shop at the end of the row. “Clint was in a good mood as well when I saw him on his way out of the Tower.  If he lost, I would have expected him to be grumpy.  What were the stakes?”

“I don’t know exactly, but he’s giving Bucky an archery lesson today, once Stark is done with him.  I left him lunch in the fridge, so hopefully he’ll eat all of it.”

“You’re worried about him eating?” Natasha prompted as she led the way into the shoe shop.

Steve paused, recognising the leading question as a subtle interrogation technique and suddenly unsure.  “Are you asking as an agent or as my friend?” he asked slowly, hoping that she wouldn’t take offence.

Natasha was silent for a moment as she looked through a display of boots, eventually selecting a brown pair to try on and turning to look him in the eye.  “I’m sorry,” she apologised.  “It’s hard to turn off the agent sometimes, but I did mean to be your friend on this trip.”

Steve huffed a sigh and nodded, something in her manner reassuring him that she was sincere.  “All right.  Yes, I’m worried.  The cryo did a number on his insides, and he was having trouble finding anything he could eat, he was skin and bone by the time he got here.”

Natasha looked up from zipping the boots and wandered over to the mirror, turning her feet from side to side.  “I saw him yesterday, briefly.  He doesn’t look that bad.   A little thin perhaps, but not worryingly so.”  She bounced on her toes a few times, before frowning and walking back to the display.

“Jarvis helped me make the protein recipe from the file you gave me, and we’ve figured out that he can eat white meat and plain vegetables without too much trouble.  He’s better than he was.”

“So why are you still worried?”

Steve wanted to rub a hand over his hair but he didn’t want to dislodge the beanie and potentially cause a scene, so he found himself wringing his hands like an old woman instead.  A quick glance at Natasha made him flush as he realised that she was watching him with an amused half smile on her face.

Steve hadn’t actually had to put his feelings into words before, so he wasn’t sure where to start.  Natasha turned her attention back to the boots as he collected his thoughts, swapping them back for her original shoes.  “He had this attitude when he first arrived, like the fact that he was slowly starving didn’t matter,” he said in a rush.  “Not these boots?”

Natasha allowed him to change the subject as she returned the boots to the rickety display shelf she had taken them from.  “Nope, they’re not suitable.  Pity, they’re cute.”

“What makes them unsuitable?” Steve asked, feeling clueless.  They looked like a sturdy pair of boots to him, brown leather ornamented by suede panels and plenty of grip on the soles.

“I never buy footwear I can’t fight in,” Natasha explained as she lead them out of the shop. “For what it’s worth, I’m really glad Barnes is here.”  She peered around the top floor of the mall and tugged him in the direction of a small coffee shop with tables half hidden behind large planters.  “I’ll explain in a minute, let’s get coffee.”

Coffee in hand and almost enveloped in an indoor fern, Steve waited patiently for his explanation.  Natasha took her time, pouring brown sugar into her black coffee and stirring it carefully with a thin wooden stick.  “I was worried about Stark, before Barnes arrived,” she said eventually.  “He was erratic, flitting from project to project.  Some of the ideas that he had come up with… well let’s just say they could have had negative consequences.  Maybe not immediately, but… you know.  I see patterns, and I was worried.  Hill and I were trying to come up with contingency plans.  Then, Barnes arrived and suddenly Tony had a new project.  The arm has taken up a lot of his attention, and reverse engineering aspects of it that he approved of and incorporating them into his next suit has taken the rest.”

“How do you know so much about what Stark has been up to?” Steve asked.  “The man might have invited us into his home but he isn’t exactly social.”

Natasha smiled softly and sipped at her coffee.  “I have my ways,” she said after he had stared pointedly at her for at least thirty seconds.

“You invited me shopping to tell me this,” Steve realised.  “You wanted a plausible excuse to talk outside of the tower.”

Natasha nodded.  “You’re learning,” she said approvingly.  “You’ll never make a spy, but you may eventually make a good diplomat.  An ambassador.  I think that we might need one.”

Steve opened his mouth to ask her to elaborate, but she shook her head firmly, red curls flying.  They finished their coffee in silence before abandoning the table.

“Can we go now?” Steve asked hopefully, adjusting his hat and giving into the urge to scratch at his stubble.

“No chance, I need a new jacket.  My old one has a bullet crease across the back and the sleeve is singed.”

Steve resigned himself to being trapped in the mall for several more hours.  He thought of Bucky, learning archery at the range, and felt a flash of envy.  He liked Natasha, he really did, but clothes shopping was not his idea of a good time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone is wondering, in this story Bucky did not kill Tony's parents. I couldn't figure out a non-obvious way to work that into the chapter, so I thought I'd add it to the comments. If you're expecting fireworks (and never say never) that will not be the trigger.
> 
> You may have noticed that the chapter total has moved. That's because I am suddenly not sure how far I'm going. Thank you for joining in with the ride!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No trigger warnings for this chapter.

Clint was already in the range when James arrived at 2pm sharp, feeling uncomfortably full from the bland lunch of chicken, rice and broccoli Steve had prepared. He knew that the sensation would soon pass as his enhanced metabolism burned through the calories, and to that end he had a smoothie in an insulated cup for later. The archer had forgone the sweatpants today and was instead in a pair of well worn combats with a rip across the back of one thigh that had been repaired in bright orange thread. James had a good view as Clint was halfway into the back of one of the storage lockers and looked as if he were on the verge of tipping himself in.

“Ah ha!” he exclaimed triumphantly, emerging from the locker with what looked like half a glove. He spotted James standing three feet away from him and started, falling backwards and landing in a graceless sprawl on the floor.  “I swear I am capable of acrobatic feats worthy of admiration,” he muttered, flushing as he accepted the hand James offered to pull him to his feet.  Barton rubbed at the back of his neck with one hand and thrust the hand holding the glove at James. “Here. I noticed that you were left handed while we were shooting yesterday, and I thought, well, I wasn’t sure about grip, so, um, here.”

James accepted what turned out to be a three fingered glove from Clint and turned it over in his hands. “I don’t understand,” he admitted after a moment.

The archer lead the way over to the bench where he had laid out an array of arrows and three different bows. “Most archers wear a glove like that,” he explained. “For the hand you draw with. As you’re left handed, I figured when I was packing this morning that you wouldn’t need one as you’ll be drawing with the metal hand, so I didn’t pack a spare. But then when I got here, I remembered that the metal probably doesn’t have a lot of grip, so a glove would probably be easier for you.”

James nodded, surprised at Barton’s thoughtfulness. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Barnes. So, about these arrows, I have a couple of different types here-”

“You can call me James,” James interrupted. Barton gaped at him like a fish for a few seconds.

“Clint,” he eventually responded. “Call me Clint. Arrows, yeah. So, this is a standard bullet tip, we’ll be using this for practising indoors.

Archery, as it turned out, was a lot more than playing around with sticks and strings. James though that he and Steve had done than one summer, playing in the dusty streets. The flash of memory came to him as he drew back to his chin, peering down the length of the arrow at his target. Clint took being a teacher seriously, walking him through the three bows he had and explaining the pros and cons of each.

“Hey, you asked for a lesson man,” he explained when James commented, handing over three arrows. “A lesson is a lesson, means that you should come out of this range believing that you’ve learnt something. And you never know, one day some of this might come in handy.”

It was, James realised about halfway through, the most carefree thing he’d done in decades. Even their impromptu shooting contest the day before had had more weight to it. It really didn’t matter if he mastered the skill or not, if he never even hit the target. There were no goals to complete and no consequences associated. He felt settled into his skin, and that relief made him smile. Clint saw and smiled back, before tripping over his own duffel bag and narrowly avoiding falling flat on his face with his arms full of equipment he was evidentially unwilling to drop. James darted forward to steady him, only realising after he’d done so that he’d used the metal arm, fingers still adorned with the archery glove. Clint didn’t seem to mind.

“Whoops!” he said cheerfully. “Just the compound bow to try now. Stark made this one, it’s the one I was testing yesterday. I’m not enthralled, I prefer the recurve, but you might get on with it. After that I’m afraid we’ll have to pack up.”

“Hot date tonight?” James asked without thinking. Clint laughed and shook his head ruefully.

“I wish! I’m terrible at relationships. One ex, Bobbi, she described me as a tyre fire of a human being and that just about sums it up. No, I have to go walk Lucky.”

“You have a dog?” James asked, the conversation suddenly more interesting than the sleek lines of the weapon Clint had passed him.

“Yup. Labrador Retriever mutt, soppy as anything. One eye. I rescued him from the tracksuit mafia, and he likes pizza.”

“What does he do while you’re on missions?”

“Sometimes the neighbours take care of him, sometimes I leave him with a friend,” Clint explained. “Right, about the compound bow, the draw weight seems lighter as a lot of the force is held in the cams. You can get a lot of distance with them, I sometimes use them for sniping. Compound bows are smaller, if heavier, and easier to hide. In an actual fight though I prefer the recurve because the fewer components there are, the less there is to fail in a critical moment.”

“Makes sense,” James agreed, pulling at the compound and marvelling at how light the draw felt compared to the recurve. “It feels like there’ll be no power,” he observed.

“Try shooting with it,” Clint advised with a grin.

They were packing everything back into the bag when Clint’s phone chimed and his face fell. “Aw, phone, no,” he muttered as he unlocked it. “There’s a call to assemble. Dammit, Lucky is going to shit on the floor again. I’ll have to call someone.”

“I could walk him,” James offered before he thought better of it. Clint stared at him for a long moment, then closed his eyes for a second and nodded. James’ mouth dropped open in shock, he hadn’t really thought the offer through and he definitely hadn’t expected Clint to accept.

“Yes,” the archer said, with more certainty than James expected. “Because, well, because of reasons that I guess I can explain to you another time when I’m not supposed to be assembling. Here’s my keys, Jarvis knows my address. Don’t take one of Stark’s cars, someone will bash the windscreen in. See you later!”

James watched as he turned smartly on his heel and jogged out of the range with the bag of weaponry thrown over his shoulder, and then returned to his room, muttering his thanks as the AI projected a route map onto the wall for him.  It didn't take him long to decide to go straight away.  There wasn't anything he was schedule to do after all, and the dog would probably appreciate it.

*

James dressed carefully for his trip to Bed Stuy in a blue canvas jacket and black woollen gloves.  It was autumn, so he hoped that the gloves would not be noticeable.  He peered at himself in a mirror, and then pulled the knitted hat that had come with the gloves over his hair.  He didn't look much like killer, he decided.  He didn't look like the Winter Soldier at all, and he thought he could catch a glimpse of the old Bucky, but a serious, quieter side.  The still sniper, the focussed art student.  The rowdy Bucky who threw his arms around his friends and whirled dames around the dance floor?  That man was gone.

He navigated the subway easily, avoiding eye contact and slipping through the crowds.  There were many bundled up in gloves and scarves, some children red faced and overheating they were swathed in so many layers.

Brooklyn had changed a lot since the days when he knew every street, but he did his best to ignore the differences and focus on  the route that Jarvis had laid out for him.  Clint's building was in a run down area that was nethertheless full of life, children running about after battered footballs and women sporting brightly coloured scarves carrying shopping home.  He was pleased to note that there weren't any groups of men hanging around, and that almost all of the cars he saw had all four wheels and their tires were intact.

The front door to the building was open, two small children played with dice on one of the steps, a bicycle with tattered streamers attached to the handlebars lying abandoned on the pavement beneath them.  They peered up at him as he approached.

"You're new," the taller of the two observed.

"I'm here to walk a friend's dog for him," James replied.  Both small faces lit up with big smiles.

"Lucky!" the smaller pronounced with glee.  "He likes the park over there."  A small dusty finger pointed in the direction of the favoured park and James took note of it.

"Thank you for telling me," he said, turning away to continue his climb up the steps.

Once secure in the cool shadows of the lobby, he took a moment to lean against the wall and watch his hands shake.  He had spoken, with children!  His mind struggled to reconcile the ease of the interaction with how wrong it had felt.  He didn't deserve to be anywhere near such innocence, and yet he had not frightened them or said anything to cause discomfort.  He wondered if they would speak to him again when he left, and whether he should encourage their interaction even though he was a stranger.

They obviously knew and liked the dog, would it be cruel to the children to deny them the opportunity to interact with Lucky just because he was with the animal instead of Clint?  He meant them no harm after all.

He didn't know what the right answer was, but a noise from the front of the building propelled him into moving again, across the lobby past the elevator that sported a handwritten 'out of order' sign and up the stairs.

Clint's apartment was easy to find despite the telling lack of door numbers, the scrabble of hard claws on the floor as he approached was audible from halfway down the hall.

The noise stopped abruptly, replaced by wheezing inhales as Lucky crammed his nose against a crack in the door to scent James.  Then an uncertain whine and the animal moved away from the door.

The key Clint had tossed him worked as expected, and James opened the door cautiously, revealing a battered yellow lab with one good eye sitting perfectly still three meters from the door, watching him carefully.

"Hi Lucky, I'm James," he introduced himself **.** It suddenly seemed important to him to let the dog know that his master was all right."Clint's ok, he just sent me to take you for a walk," he explained, crouching down in the doorway.

Lucky whined again, tilted his head on one side and then took a few cautious steps forward.  James extended his flesh hand for the dog to sniff at, which seemed to have been the right move because the next thing he knew he had wet fingers and an armful of excited golden fur.

"You're probably ready to go out, hey?  Where's your lead?" James asked, looking around the strangely bare apartment.  It was a nice space, large windows with good sightlines, an open kitchen and metal stairs leading up to a loft. He could see at least three abandoned coffee mugs from the doorway.

Lucky disappeared behind the sofa and emerged with a purple lead that matched his collar.  There was a small plastic bag tied to the lead that rustled as it was dragged across the floor.

"Good boy," James praised, and Lucky's tail wagged as he dropped the lead at his feet.  The lab waited patiently while he clipped the lead to his collar and locked the door carefully behind him, before leading the way down the stairs.

As James had predicted, the two children were overjoyed to see the dog, rushing forward to pat his head and accept enthusiastic licks to their fingers in response.

"Can we go to the park with you?" they asked in chorus.

James panicked a moment and then shook his head.  "Sorry guys, no.  You might know Clint but you don't know me, and  your mom doesn't know me either.  I don't think that she'd be too happy if a stranger took you to the park, no?  Even if you do know Lucky."

Their faces fell but they accepted his logic and petted Lucky one last time before returning to their dice game.

After a brief pause to water a tree, Lucky led the way to the corner of Quincy and Marcy, and then three blocks down to the park.  James was glad that the dog seemed to have his own ideas about where to go, as he was completely out of his depth.  This was nothing like a mission, where there had been hours of planning and maps and routes laid out for him.  This was fluid uncertainty and freedom, something that he realised with sudden shock that he had not experienced since before the war.

The park had a dog area, one that Lucky lead him to and then sat expectantly just inside the entrance with his head to one side.  James belatedly realised that he was waiting for him to unclip the leash.  Once free, Lucky dashed about in circles like a mad thing for a few minutes, but sooner than James expected he was tired of that play and set to sniffing around with a look of great determination.

James was content to wander along behind his yellow companion, the lead stuffed into one pocket.

 

*

 

On the Quinjet, Steve was staring at his teammate while his brain worked overtime analysing all the different ways that things could go wrong.  For once, he wasn't obsessing over the mission, and he knew that Sam would call that progress.

"You did what?" he asked for the second time.  Clint rolled his eyes, but obliged him with another summary.  This one, Steve knew, would be slightly different to the two preceding summaries but he suspected that it would still not help calm the hamster wheel of terrifying thoughts all battling for supremacy inside his skull.

"The alarm came while we were still at the range, and I hadn't had a chance to arrange for emergency dog sitters this week, so I was panicking a little and he offered," Clint said, looking bored and playing with the small knife that usually lived in his boot.  "I've sent a text to a neighbour so someone else will feed him tonight if I'm not back.  All Barnes needs to do is take him out for a piss."

"What if the dog attacks him?" Steve demanded.  He knew, he could  _hear himself_ being unreasonable, especially when it seemed like Bucky had instigated this insanity, but he couldn't seem to stop.

Clint shot him an unimpressed look usually reserved exclusively for empty coffee cups.  "Dude.  My dog will not attack a random stranger.  Especially not one who greets him by name.  And," he shifted, planting both boots flat on the floor and leaning forward seriously.  "Barnes is the Winter fucking Soldier.  Not a child.  You're stifling him with this mother hen act you're pulling and it's not much good for him either.  Let the man breathe.  I sincerely doubt that such a notorious assassin will meet his end at the paws of a one eyed pizza dog, even if he did used to belong to the Mafia."

"Your dog used to belong to the Mafia?" Steve wheezed, choking on nothing as his brain scrambled to process this latest piece of information.

Before Clint could respond, Natasha flicked on the autopilot and slid out of the pilots chair.  "ETA in 30 minutes.  Clint, take over.  Cap, come with me."

Mind still racing, he followed her obediently to the back of the jet, where she pushed him into a jump seat and slid into the one next to him.  She deliberately placed and hand on his knee and looked him straight in the eyes.

"This isn't about the dog," she said bluntly.  "You know that Clint wouldn't have a dangerous pet in a building with children.  This is about James.  This is about James being in a building with children."

Steve could feel himself beginning to hyperventilate, and she lifted her free hand to his cheek.  "Breathe with me," she instructed, taking a deep slow breath.

"There's too many variables," he tried to explain, but stopped when she pressed one long finger to his lips.

"No.  James was out in the world taking down Hydra for months.  He parked in street malls, stayed in hotels.  He didn't hurt a single civilian while on his self appointed mission to deal death to Hydra.  Now, he's on a Clint assigned mission to walk a dog.  A very soppy, slobbery dog that I have met.  This mission doesn't even have any death in it, there's no chance for collateral damage."

Steve nodded slowly, and was rewarded with a small smile.  "I guess I owe Clint an apology."

Natasha shrugged.  "Maybe," she allowed.  "Maybe not, he was a bit of a moron, sending James into Bed Stuy without any backup."

"Jarvis will have his back," Steve disagreed.

"Not sure how much help Jarvis will be against small children who want to pet the friendly dog, but maybe James' resting murder face will scare them off before there's an incident," Natasha said lightly.  She gave him one last considering look, then bent down and pressed a butterfly kiss to his cheek.  "Go apologise to Clint.  I want to check the satellite images for the area we're going to."

"Yes Ma'am," Steve murmured, watching her step away to the communications console and start tapping at the screens and wondering how much weight he should assign to the light brush of lips that he could still feel, burning on his cheek.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... another chapter. My goal for 2018 was to attempt to get better at writing short stories - 5K words or so. As you can see from the new ? where the estimated chapter total used to be, that is working out wonderfully for me.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve makes a new friend, Clint and Bucky get Pizza.

The art studio may be the best thing that Tony Stark had ever given him, but Steve wasn’t about to massage his ego by telling him so. It was a blank space, some might even call it sterile, and he found it incredibly soothing to be surrounded by the clean white walls. The department was busy enough that his enhanced hearing could pick up on a constant murmur of voices and movement, but there was a subdued hum to the sound. He’d spent five minutes on one of the office floors once, and he’d hated it. Ringing telephones, clattering coffee cups and raised voices had reminded him of army command tents, and that had been a phase of his life that he had been happy to put behind him.

He got into something of a routine on the days where there wasn’t a call out. In the mornings, he and Bucky hit the gym and then returned to their shared apartment for breakfast. Then Bucky usually curled up on the window seat with a tablet and a pair of headphones, catching up with the modern world and Steve left him to it, mindful of Natasha’s comments about smothering him. He’d check in with the rest of the team, and then head to the art department to spend a few hours sketching or painting. He’d invited Bucky to come with him once, but his friend had shaken his head and refused to acknowledge him for the rest of the morning so he hadn’t tried again.

Three days later, sitting at the table eating chicken soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, he realised how insensitive he had been as he watched Bucky awkwardly grip a spoon in his right hand. He’d already bent three from the set with his left and Jarvis had mentioned something about ordering new cutlery last week.

“I’m sorry,” Steve blurted out, eyes fixed on Bucky’s hand.

The brunette quirked an eyebrow at him and continued to eat his soup. “What have you done now, punk?”

“About the art studio, I didn’t think. I’m sorry.”

Bucky snorted and stuffed half his grilled cheese in his mouth at once. Part of Steve wanted to scold him for his terrible table manners, the other half was rejoicing to see Bucky eating normally, his frostbitten digestive system slowly healing the longer he spent out of the ice. “You’re always saying stuff without thinking,” he pointed out once he’d swallowed. “I don’t expect that to change.”

“I could talk to Tony?” Steve offered. “See if he can make some reinforced pencils or something.”

Bucky rolled his eyes and dropped the spoon. “Reinforced cutlery would be more helpful,” he pointed out. “I’m not really feeling the itch to draw, ok? Maybe one day. Right now I’ve got enough to do keeping my own head on straight.”

Figuring that now was as good a time as any to approach the subject, Steve screwed up his courage and asked the question that had been hovering in his mind for over a week. “What are you planning on doing now? Once you’re all caught up I mean.”

James stared down at the breadcrumbs on his plate rather than meeting his eyes. “Stark is working on my arm,” he said slowly. “Reckons he can do better. Once he has, I was going to talk to you about maybe having your back again, if you want.”

“Buck, of course I want that!” Steve hastily assured him.

“Good now we’re on the same page,” Bucky said calmly, reaching over to pour himself a glass of water from the jug in the middle of the table. “Now, I’ve noticed that you’ve been spending a lot of time with Natalia.”

Steve frowned at the change of topic. “What has that got to do with anything?” he asked, pushing his empty soup bowl aside.

“Be careful or she’ll chew you up and spit out the bones,” Bucky warned, leaning casually back in his chair.

Steve spluttered a denial, his mind on the butterfly kiss she had left on his cheek. “We’re just friends! She’s with Clint!”

To his complete shock, Bucky laughed. It was a short, rusty sounding laugh but it was enough to light a fire of hope in Steve’s chest. Perhaps, after all, things might eventually creep back to the way that they used to be. “No she isn’t, Clint’s single. Told me so himself when he told me about Lucky.”

“But… they were making pancakes!” Steve protested, feeling as if his brain had short circuited.

“So? We eat together all the time and we sure as hell aren’t dating,” Bucky pointed out. “Guess you’d better re-evaluate all those shopping trips, hey?”

He escaped back to his art studio after lunch, not wanting to admit to himself that he was half fleeing from Bucky’s knowing looks. It was true that he had originally planned on suggesting that they watch a movie together that afternoon, but Bucky didn’t know that so his absence from their living quarters wouldn’t seem strange. He had mentioned something about Stark as they were loading the dishwasher so maybe he would have been busy in any case.

For the first time, he found himself wishing that his studio door had a lock, he really didn’t want to see anyone until he had a chance to get his thoughts back together. Of course, wishing made the exact opposite happen and before he’d had time to open his pad there was a light knock on the door.

“Captain, uh, Steve, sorry, may I come in?” asked a young woman he hadn’t met before. She was supporting an impressively groomed afro with two pencils and a ruler threaded through it and wearing a brightly pattered top that looked like silk, but he suspected that if he checked the label it would be some modern blend he couldn’t pronounce.

Steve took a deep breath, reminded himself that Captain Rogers had a reputation and that turning the young woman away wouldn’t be fair to her, and smiled. “Sure! What can I do for you?” he asked as brightly as he could manage.

She didn’t react the way that he expected. “Is this a bad time?” she asked, still hovering in the doorway. “I can come back tomorrow.”

“No, it’s fine,” he insisted, watching as she carefully stepped forward. “Not a bad time at all.”

“You seem, um, stressed or something,” she said, stepping to the large filing cabinet that his old sketches were stored in. “Do you want to talk about it? Sometimes telling a stranger helps and I can keep a secret. I’m Tia.”

Steve frowned at her. “What makes you think that I’m stressed?”

She surprised him again when she blushed, keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the files in her hands. “Your smile reminded me of the old promotional videos you did in the forties,” she confessed. “And I may have had to study those when I was in University.”

Knowing that he was caught, Steve let the smile drop from his face and slumped back in the chair. “A situation that I thought I had in hand turned out to have a new variable,” he said.

Tia abandoned the filing cabinet to perch on the edge of his desk. “And again in real English?” she prompted, plucking a pencil out of her hair to twirl between her fingers.

“Someone I thought was just being friendly turned out to be single,” he clarified, deciding to leave names out of it.

“Ah, so now you’re re-evaluating every single interaction you’ve ever had with them? I’ve had that. Of course, it was the other way around for me – someone I thought was single turned out to be an ass. A married ass with a pregnant wife.”

Steve nodded. “Ok, it could be a lot worse, I know that. And I’m sorry that that guy was an ass.”

Tia’s eyes widened. “Woo boy, now that Captain America has said it the bitterness is somehow melting away,” she grinned. “He’ll never meet anyone as cool as you, you know.”

“I’m not that cool,” Steve protested. “I’m apparently terrible at judging relationships. I’ve spent months thinking they were together.”

Tia hummed, switching the pencil to her other hand and continuing to spin it. “Well, what variables were you working from?” she asked.

“She came over to borrow a cup of sugar because they were making pancakes. They spend a lot of their free time hanging out. She dropped everything one time he was in trouble, and they just seem really close, you know?”

Tia nodded seriously. “A case of mistaken best friend identity,” she diagnosed, winking. “I can see how you would have jumped to conclusions. And I’m not going to ask for names, don’t worry. But now that you know, you have a decision to make.”

Steve frowned. “I do?”

“Yup.” Tia slid off of his desk and handed him the pencil. “Draw her. Then you’ll know.”

“What?”

“You’ll know if you want friendship or something more.”

She pulled a folder out of his filing cabinet and slipped out the door while he was still processing that last statement. After a few minutes he realised that he was sitting in his otherwise empty studio staring at nothing and probably looked more than a little silly should anyone be checking Jarvis’ security feeds. Tia’s suggestion was a good one, he decided as he opened his sketchpad and began to lightly outline a well known face.

*

James surprised himself when he realised that he quite liked Tony’s workshop. It was full to overflowing with things, half finished projects, tools and inventions strew everywhere, a crazy collection of noise and colour. He’d remembered dragging Steve to the Stark Expo to see Howard show off his flying car prototype a few days before he’d returned to the tower, he remembered how he’d longed for the inventions of the future. The actual future wasn’t a whole lot like the books, but there was upsides.

Tony looked up from the delicate adjustments he was making to the shoulder mechanism of the arm and grinned at him. “Need to take a break. Want a smoothie?”

“Sure. Has Steve been on at you too?”

Tony grinned wider, something that James hadn’t been sure was possible. “Nope, not our favourite Capsicle. Jarvis will remind me to eat in the next ten minutes anyway and I was getting a pain in my neck, so now is as good a time as any. Blueberry and raspberry?”

“Sounds good.”

James stayed put on the chair Tony had directed him to, as there were still some wires trailing from his arm and he didn’t want to ruin anything that Tony had been working on. It didn’t take long for the engineer to return with a smoothie in each hand, his eyes tracking quickly as he read something on the high tech glasses he was wearing. “So. I hear that you and the resident archer have been trying out my new compound bow. Got any feedback?”

James shook his head. “Not really, Clint was just showing me how it worked. Compounds aren’t his favourite for a combat situation though, he said there were too many moving parts that could go wrong.”

Tony nodded. “I can see how that would be a concern for someone used to working with sub-standard equipment,” he agreed. “How came about this meeting of the brainwashed assassins?”

James tensed, twisting around in the chair to look at Tony’s face. “What do you mean, brainwashed?” he demanded, visions of the chair looming large in his head.

The engineer looked up in surprise. “You didn’t know? Clint was taken over for three days by a mad god called Loki.”

“I wasn’t briefed about it,” James said slowly. “He was off the radar when Hydra sent me after Fury and Steve, they didn’t bother telling me a whole lot about the rest of you other than a basic bio.”

“I think I’m offended that I didn’t deserve a full briefing,” Tony said lightly. “Best not talk to Clint about it, it’s still a sore subject and he’s carrying around a lot of guilt. I’ll have Jarvis release the files for you.”

“Thanks Tony.”

James sat back in the chair and tried to ignore the strange sensations Tony’s adjustments sent down his nerves. Clint being a fellow victim might explain why he trusted James so easily when others seemed to have a lot more trouble with it, he reasoned. That was one mystery solved at least.

Clint himself appeared in the doorway to the workshop half an hour later, compound bow in hand and a sticking plaster across the bridge of his nose. “Stark, you in here?” he called over the pounding heavy metal music that Tony had had Jarvis play once it was obvious that their conversation was over for the moment.

“Hit pause, J!” Tony called. “Over here with Barnes, Legolas.”

Clint picked his way through the workbenches to stand next to James’ knees. “Hey. I brought the bow back, and a page of observations on it. Jarvis has footage, some of it has running commentary. Not sure how helpful it’ll be.”

“Awesome!” Tony looked genuinely pleased, which seemed to surprise Clint. James sat back and watched them banter back and forth as Tony screwed the last few plates of the arm back into place.

“All done! I’ll get Jarvis to ping you when I’m ready to do the next bit. I’ve dialled up the sensitivity a bit for now, so you should have fewer problems picking things up without accidentally crushing them. The downside is that if you were to punch someone, it would probably hurt more than doing it with your other hand.”

“So I can’t fight with this?” James confirmed.

“You could shoot?” Tony suggested, his eyes flicking to Clint. “And I already have plans to make the sensitivity adjuster external so that you can adjust it as needed.”

James nodded. “Thank you,” he said, sliding from the table and pulling his hoodie over the gleaming metal. “I appreciate you fixing me up.”

“No worries, Terminator,” Tony said absently, attention already caught by the notes that Clint had left on a workbench.

Assuming that the two men would want to discuss the bow, James headed for the exit. He was surprised when Clint fell into step next to him, hands in his pockets as he matched his stride to James’.

“Tony will get on better without an audience,” he explained in response to James’ puzzled look. “And I’m hungry. Want to go get pizza?”

“Here? Or outside the tower?”

“There’s a really nice pizza joint over in Brooklyn, near a park. I was thinking that maybe we could go pick up Lucky and grab some?” Clint suggested. His expression was oddly tight and he watched James carefully out of the corner of his eye.

He couldn’t think of a reason to say no, he had no other plans this afternoon and the idea of going out for pizza was far more appealing than sitting waiting for Steve to get home and cook something. “All right,” he agreed. “Jarvis, will you let Steve know I’m eating with Clint and I’ll be back later?”

“Of course, Sargent Barnes.”

*

Lucky, predictably, was ecstatic to be collected in the middle of the day and taken out for a walk.  He frolicked around Clint like an overgrown puppy and James had to bite back more than one chuckle when the dog's antics nearly sent the owner flying. 

"I'd tell you that he's usually better behaved than this, but I'd be lying," Clint sighed as he stepped over the excited canine for the third time.  "It's not too hot today, so I was thinking that we'd run him around the park for an hour or so and then go get pizza.  Sound ok?"

"Much better than the afternoon I had planned," James assures him.  "Steve is weird about me cooking so I was going to have a shake and then sit around on my tablet waiting for him."

"Why is he weird about it?" Clint asked, stooping to pick up a reasonably sized stick from under a hedge. 

James shrugged.  "For reasons that I do not remember clearly.  It's not like I'm dumb though, we've got all these fancy gadgets in the kitchen that all seem to be geared towards making life easier, I'm sure I could learn to reheat soup."

"I once made a microwave explode trying to reheat soup," Clint confessed, flipping the stick up in the air and catching it.  Lucky skidded to a halt in front of him, his eyes on the stick.  "Whoops," the archer muttered, hiding it behind his back.  "Not now buddy.  you can have it when we get to the park.  One more block."   Lucky whined but Clint stood firm and they were shortly on their way again. 

"You made a microwave explode?"

"I'd never seen one before and no one told me that you're not supposed to put metal in them, so I tried to reheat it in the tin.  Then the next time I did put it in a bowl, but no one told me that it could boil and throw soup all over the inside of the microwave.  Luckily, cleaning up is something I am excellent at, so no one knew about the second disaster.  Well, except for probably Natasha, because she somehow knows everything."

"She doesn't, she's just trained to make you think that she does," James told him.  "I was not part of that class, they did not like me to talk to... anyway, I heard enough to know that it is how she speaks and acts that gives you that impression, she does not know."

"Hm, good to know.  Well, I guess I knew that already, I mean I've seen her use the techniques on enemies.  I suppose I just didn't consider that she used it on everyone else too." 

"Training such as she received is not something that you can just turn off."

They walked into the park and Clint threw the stick, stuck his hands in his pockets and began to pace a slow perimeter.  "She's come a long way," he said slowly.  "I think she's happy now."

"I think she's trying to date Steve," James revealed, watching for Clint's reaction, which was a beaming smile.

"I know, I'm glad one of you figured it out.  I don't remember her ever approaching someone for herself, so this is a big deal to me but I've been trying to keep out of it."

"Steve thought you two were together, which probably wasn't helping.  I enlightened him over lunch."

"Me and Nat?" Clint looked like he wasn't sure whether to look horrified or burst out laughing.  "No thank you.  She's like a sister to me."

James nodded and they continued to walk around the park, Lucky running rings around them and periodically bringing the stick back for Clint to throw again.

"You said you'd explain why you trusted me with your house keys and your dog," James reminded Clint as they turned the far corner, Luckily momentarily distracted by a squirrel. 

"Were you briefed on the team at all?" Clint asked, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the dog.

"I was given a basic overview, but most of what I know I know from talking to Steve."

"Did he mention what happened with Loki and the tesseract?" 

James shook his head.  "Nothing specific, I think it only came up once."

Clint took a deep breath.  "Well, someone opened a portal using the tesseract and Loki came through.  He had a staff which he could use for instant brainwashing, and he used it on me.  I was his puppet for three days, and I think I will have nightmares for the rest of my life.  I don't need... I just wanted to let you know that... shared life experiences and all that crap."

James nodded and Clint bent to make a fuss of Lucky when he ran up, minus the stick.  "Shared life experiences," he echoed, wanting to lighten the mood.  "Guess that means that we need to get married?"

"Naw, you're way outta my league, far too pretty with your murder eyes and shiny hair," Clint responded immediately, straightening up with a grin.  James was pleased to see the lightness return to his eyes.  "C'mon Lucky, where's your stick boy?" 

Steve hadn't let James try pizza yet, so he was looking forward to the experience.  He didn't think that they'd ever had it back in the forties, although if they had the flavour was likely to trigger the memories.  Once Lucky had tired himself out, Clint lead the way to a tiny white tiled restaurant with colourful mats on the floor.

"They import the flour and tomatoes from the south of Italy," the archer explained as he looped Lucky's lead around his chair leg.  "I figured if it was our first time having pizza together I should make sure that it's the good stuff.  Not that American style pizza isn't good as well, it's just not the same."

"I had no idea that you were a pizza gourmet," James teased him, dropping his right hand down to scratch Lucky between the ears.

"Well, it's a well kept secret so don't go spilling the beans," Clint winked.

They were interrupted by their waiter, who beamed at Clint, smiled at James and gave Lucky what looked like a home made dog biscuit.  "Pizza e birra?"

"Si Francesco, grazie."

"Prego!"

James smiled at Clint.  "You speak Italian?"

"I can order pizza in twenty seven languages," the archer said seriously.  "Francesco will be back shortly with something to nibble on while we wait for the pizza."

"I've been trying to remember if I've ever had it," James confessed.  "I'm not sure."

"You were in Italy for a while during the war, right?  You might have had it then."

James nodded.  "I think so.  Maybe.  I might remember when I taste it."

"Francesco's pizza is the best, you're in for a treat," Clint promised. 

The memories evoked by the pizza were amorphous wisps, but James found that for the first time he didn't care.  He felt no need to strain himself into a migraine chasing after memory fragments when Clint was right there in front of him, gesturing with a slice of pizza as he told him the story of how he rescued Lucky from the tracksuit mafia, and feeding the golden Labrador bits of pizza crust when Francesco wasn't looking.  He didn't need the memory of the first time he ate pizza, the memory of eating pizza with Clint was going to be more than enough.

 

*

 

Steve sat in the studio, staring at the open sketchpad on the desk.  He had finished drawing Natasha, she stared out of the page at him fiercely, ready for to battle by his side.  She looked elegant and ruthless, her wild curls haloing her head, her feet planted solidly.  There was nothing of the softness he had sometimes seen in her, no humour or empathy in her expression, and he was taken aback.

This picture was how he saw her, a warrior ready to fight at his side.  He knew something of her past, knew that someone had shattered her long ago.  He'd seen a wariness in Clint's eyes recently when he looked at the two of them, and he thought that he now knew the reason.  Natasha rarely wanted anything for herself, and now she apparently wanted to build on her relationship with him.

As he stared at the picture, Steve began to feel guilty.  He had seen more of her than the fierce warrior, but he had not trusted what he had seen.  She was so skilled at misdirection and her talent at pulling on another personality in a second had him assuming that any interaction with her should be treated with caution.  That was unfair to her, and he had a feeling that Bucky would have smacked him around the back of the head if he had known.

Tia had been right, the drawing had been helpful.  It had made him realise that he had no idea if he wanted a relationship with Natasha, because he hadn't let himself know Natasha as a person at all.  First he had assumed that she was with Clint, and that knowledge and friendship would grow with time as they all settled into the tower together, and then Bucky had taken so much of his attention that unless specifically invited, he rarely spent time with anyone else.

Steve locked the sketch into his desk drawer, resolving to draw another one in a month and compare the two.

Taking a deep breath, he looked up at the security camera.  "Jarvis?  Where is Natasha please?" 


	7. Chapter 7

Steve decided on Coney Island as a suitable location for a first date. He hadn't been there since the forties and Bucky had shown no interest whatsoever in joining him for a nostalgia trip, but he wanted to see how it had changed. It was a place designed for fun, and that seemed to be something that Natasha rarely indulged in. He was tempted to send the invite over text, but then decided that in person would be better. Jarvis had said that she was at the range, so he took the stairs three at a time in an attempt to burn off some of the tension that had crept into his muscles, his mind full of half formed opening lines.

Of course, they all flew out of his head when he actually saw her.

"Steve," she said calmly as he opened the door, ear defenders firmly in place. "I was about done, if you wanted to shoot?"

"Actually I was looking for you."

There was a flash of something in her eyes, but she swiftly assumed her usual competent mask. "Is there a mission?"

Steve smiled at her hopefully, and was pleased to see her face ease a little in return. "Actually I wanted to issue an invitation," he said, watching as her eyes widened in surprise. "I wanted to ask you to come to Coney Island with me."

She pulled the ear defenders off and hung them on the hook, her movements graceful and deliberate. "Is there a purpose to this invitation?" she asked.

"To have fun together," Steve said bluntly. "I realised that I… anyway, I'd like to go with you, and have a good time. Together."

"Yes, you made that part clear," she teased. "What's brought this on?"

Steve shrugged, knowing that he couldn't tell her the truth. "All of the shopping trips were ok but they were trips for you. I wanted to do something together that I find fun. If you don't like it we can pick something else next time."

Natasha nodded. "I've only ever been to an amusement park for work," she confessed after a moment. "I spent most of the time keeping an eye on my mark. It would be pleasant to go and experience one with no additional agenda."

Steve couldn't help the grin that spread across his face. "How about Wednesday?" he suggested.

"For you I'll clear my schedule."

*

Wednesday lunchtime arrived, and James wandered into the communal kitchen with a bag full of fruit and protein powder. He grinned when he saw Steve, Natasha and Clint gathered around the table, looking at a glossy leaflet that they had spread out between them.

"Bucky! You should see how Coney Island looks now!" Steve called with a big smile on his face.

"I'm sure it's amazing, pal, but I'm starving and there's no milk in our icebox," James explained, not deviating from his direct path to the counter. "Anyone else fancy a smoothie?"

Clint nodded and left the table. "Sounds good. Fancy some pancakes to go with?"

James smiled at him. "I hear good things about your pancakes."

Natasha and Steve called a goodbye as they left, but James was far more interested in the entranced look on Clint's face as he used his metal arm to beat the pancake batter.

"That is so cool, and it won’t even get tired!" the archer exclaimed. "That's it, you're my official pancake beater from now on."

"Who is beating what?" Tony asked as he wandered into the kitchen, looking tired but clean for once.

"I don't remember the last time I saw you without grease on you," Clint teased. "Want some pancakes?"

Tony visibly perked up at the invitation. "Is there coffee to go with them?"

"I was going to make fruit smoothies, but we can have coffee as well," James offered. "Although… Jarvis, when was the last time Tony slept?"

"Sir has been awake for thirty-eight minutes Sargent Barnes," the AI replied.

Tony was grinning at him. "I love that you use Jarvis," he said conversationally as he started to fiddle with the industrial size coffee maker. "But this is morning after an inventing spree tired, not 'I've-been-up-all-night' tired. Coffee is required for continuing functionality."

"There are subtle differences, I'm still learning them," Clint took the bowl from James and started to arrange things around the hob to his liking. "Make the smoothies now, and I'll get flipping. Can you set the oven on low please?"

James did as requested, slicing peaches and strawberries into the blender with a generous shake of vanilla protein powder. "I'm not putting bananas in it," he announced as he poured milk on top. "Bananas now are disgusting."

"We'll have to take your word for it," Tony told him, inhaling the steam rising from the expresso he had just made. "Warning for the jumpy, I'm about to use the milk steamer and it's going to be loud."

A short while later they were sitting down to a meal that looked more like breakfast than lunch, although no-one sitting at the table seemed to mind.

"You've really cracked this smoothie thing," Clint commented as he emerged from his glass with a foamy moustache. James reached out without thinking to wipe the smear away with a grin,

"Had a lot of practise."

Clint coughed and stuffed half a pancake in his mouth. Tony peered between the both of them, opened his mouth to comment and then picked up his coffee instead. "I haven't had enough caffeine for this!" he announced, draining the mug. Who wants a refill?"

"Me!" Clint said quickly. James declined and turned his attention back to his plate.

Tony excused himself from washing up, not that James had expected anything different, and so the two snipers ended up side by side at the sink with a mound of bubbles in front of them, due to a small incident with the soap container and James' metal arm.

He wasn't quite sure how they ended up with his arms around Clint's waist trying to flip him sideways as the archer did his best to shove a handful of bubbles down the back of his shirt, but he was entirely sure that Clint had started it.

"Want to come up on the roof with me?" Clint asked once the dishes were propped on the draining board and most of the bubbles had burst, leaving them clammy and wet in unexpected places. He had been sneaking sideways glances at James since the incident with the smoothie foam, and James had been surprised to find that some part of his brain preened under the attention. Maybe that was how he'd gathered the reputation he had in the fourties.

"What will we do up there?" he asked as he followed Clint to the elevator.

"Watch the birds," Clint grinned over his shoulder. "There's a nest on the building opposite, they've got chicks at the moment."

James had expected pigeons or seagulls, and was surprised to peer through the binoculars Clint passed him and focus on a red tailed hawk. "Woah," he breathed out. "She's beautiful."

"He," Clint corrected him, swinging his legs over the side of the roof. "That's the male, you'll see the female in a bit. Somewhere in that mess of twigs are two chicks, they'll poke their heads up now and then."

The birds had nested on top of a protruding bit of architectural design, and James smiled as he wondered what the reaction of the architect would be if he knew that there were streaks of white marring the smooth stone curves of his design. Would he be pleased, honoured that they had chosen his building to nest in? Or would he be selfishly annoyed that Nature was not complying with his vision?

"My turn," Clint, announced, breaking his train of thought. He turned to find that the archer had leant close to grab the binoculars and their faces were now only a few inches apart. Clint's grey eyes dropped to his lips and then darted back up.

"Please don't shoot me," the blond muttered, "but I'd quite like to kiss you, so if that isn't something that you-"

"I'd like that," James interrupted his rambling monologue. Clint blinked at him for a moment, and then crossed the scant inches that separated them and pressed their lips softly together.

They shared an uncertain smile, and then James handed over the binoculars.

"Was that your first kiss since 1945?" Clint asked a few minutes later, after they had tracked the male hawk leaving the nest again.

"I'm not sure," James admitted. "First consensual kiss, in any case. I, um, it was nice."

"Yeah," Clint agreed, keeping the binoculars firmly on his face, his cheeks dusted lightly with pink. "I, um, wouldn't mind doing it again, sometime. I mean, I like you."

"I like you too," James confessed, feeling awkwardly like a clumsy teenager professing feelings for the first time. The hot embarrassment tugged a fleet of snapshot memories up from the back of his mind, walking with girls after school, trying to explain kissing to Stevie, the first time he danced and accidentally stepped on Pansy Thomas' foot. "Perhaps we could go out for pizza again sometime."

Clint dropped the binoculars into his lap and turned to smile at him. "Like a proper date this time?"

James dug deep for some of Bucky Barnes' charm and slipped his arm around Clint's shoulders. "I'm willing to call the last pizza outing a date as well," he murmured in Clint's ear. "After all, we have to make it to three, right?"

*

One Month Later…

Despite his smooth words on the roof, it took considerably more than three dates before James and Clint worked their way up to anything more intimate than kissing, but Clint didn't seem to mind all that much. Recovery wasn't linear, as he was fond of saying when James got frustrated with himself.

They were sitting in the communal kitchen with Lucky leaning against Clint's legs, having smuggled him up past the lower level security guards when Steve limped in from the Gym with Natasha trailing after him looking shamefaced.

"Wow, that is an impressive black eye," Clint blurted out. Steve frowned and him, and then winced, prodding tentatively at the purpling skin on his cheek.

"I accidentally kneed him in the face," Natasha confessed, making a beeline for the freezer and pulling out one of the gel packs stored on the top shelf and wrapping it in a clean towl. "Here, I know it'll heal quickly, but indulge me and ice it, ok?"

Steve meekly took the icepack and gently laid it on his face.

"You're normally more precise than that, Natalia," James commented nonchalantly. "Is there a story here?"

He was surprised when Natasha blushed and Steve groaned. "My fault," the supersoldier explained. "Shouldn't have opened my big mouth. Let's just leave it there, ok?"

"Come on Steve," Natasha instructed, looping her arm through his. "Come to my rooms where I can fuss over you without two sets of curious eyes watching. Clint, if Tony spots Lucky you're going to be in trouble."

"Awww, Nat!" Clint whined.

"He won't be here for long," Bucky promised. "They've opened a doggy water park, we're going to take him."

"I heard my name!" Tony announced, bouncing into the kitchen with a small metal box in his hands. Natasha quickly pulled Steve out of the room as the engineer skidded to a halt, staring at Lucky. "There is a dog in my tower."

"His name is Lucky, he's just visiting," Clint said quickly.

"Dogs are awesome," Tony announced, dropping to his knees and opening his arms. "Here boy! Here Lucky!"

Not one to pass up free petting, Lucky bounded over to be made a fuss off, happily licking Tony's hands and face.

"Do you only have one eye? Oh my goodness, what a brave dog," Tony cooed. "Legolas, is this adorable creature yours? Where have you been hiding him?"

"Bet-stuy," James answered as Clint seemed speechless. "We, uh, well, I don't know why but everyone else seemed to think that you'd have a problem with dogs."

"Because of the germ thing," Clint blurted out.

"That's only ikky people germs," Tony informed him, resting his cheek on Lucky's head. "Dog germs are entirely different, and dogs never have a motive more nefarious than attempting to swindle more food or cuddles out of you. Dogs are much better than people."

"So… you don't mind me brining him to the tower?"

"I'll make the empty balcony on the floor below into a garden," Tony announced. "Would you like that boy? We can have some bushes and some grass and maybe a bench. And a forcefield, so that we can play fetch. It's quite a long balcony. Would you like that?"

Lucky woofed in answer and licked at Tony's hand.

"Huh. I guess asking if you wanted to start officially living together just got a lot easier," Clint mused. He then clapped both hands over his mouth as he realised what he had said. "I mean, if you want to," he mumbled from behind clenched fingers.

James laughed. "Sounds perfect. Let's extract your dog from the billionaire and go to the park, yeah? We can plan things out on the way."

"Before you go, the box is for you," Tony said, busy scratching Lucky behind the ears. "Steve mentioned something a few weeks back and I finally got around to it."

James opened the box carefully, and stared at an array of small metal tubes. "What?"

"Reinforced art supplies," Tony explained cheerfully, climbing to his feet and brushing ineffectively at the yellow hairs stuck to his t-shirt. "I expect something for the fridge, ok? Gimmie a shout if you have any problems, but they should be pretty easy to figure out, and you should have a really hard time snapping them. They can only be sharpened with the sharpener in the box, the outer layer is too tough for a standard knife.

"Wow Tony. It's amazing what you can come up with in that workshop of yours," Clint observed, placing a grounding hand on Bucky's shoulder. "Shall we take them to the dog park?"

"No, they might get wet," James shook his head. "I'll, um, put them in my room for now. Thank you Tony."

"No problem, it was a fun challenge," the engineer said, already focused in on the coffee machine. "I'll email you once the contractors have had a look at the balcony and given me an timeline."

They left him to it, taking the elevator to the floor that James shared with Steve.

"We can go to the dog park tomorrow if you wanted to draw now?" Clint suggested hesitantly.

James smiled at him and shook his head. "We planned to spend the day together and I want to," he explained, leaning forward to press a quick kiss to Clint's cheek. "Besides, I'm horribly out of practise."

Clint turned, turning the quick peck into something decidedly less innocent. "Dog park it is then," he murmured against James' lips. "Then pizza, and then back here to take advantage of the ridiculously expensive sheets that Tony stocked all the rooms with?"

James kissed him again, if only to wipe the ridiculous smirk from his face. "You love ridiculously expensive sheets," he reminded his boyfriend.

"No denial here. C'mon, put your fancy pencils down and let's get going."

James left the silver box by the door and followed Clint out of the apartment, feeling settled in a way that he would not have imagined possible six months earlier. He lifted a hand without thinking to push his hair back and groaned as strands caught in the metal plates for the umpteenth time.

"Clint! Hold up, I'm stuck!"

"Again?!"

 

 

The End.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies everyone for the length of time it took to post this last chapter. I started this story with my head in a very different place, my OTP was different, and *many* films have come out between then and now.
> 
> I hope that you've enjoyed the ride enough to stick around and check out my other works.


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